Nairobi/Goma - The head of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), Alan Doss, has condemned militias fighting in the east of the country, accusing them of committing "war crimes."

Doss said that the UN did not yet have a clear idea of a massacre that occurred in the town of Kinwanja, which was first taken by Mai Mai militias loyal to the government, then by the forces of rebel general Laurent Nkunda.

UN aid workers had found the bodies of dozens of civilians in the town some 80 kilometres north of the provincial capital of Goma.

African leaders attending an emergency summit in Nairobi Friday on the conflict urged an immediate ceasefire and the extension of UN peacekeeping powers in the country.

Beijing - A UN-sponsored congress on Saturday urged the integration of traditional medicine into national health care plans, saying patients would benefit from its use alongside modern medicine.

"The knowledge of traditional medicine, treatments and practices should be respected, preserved, promoted and communicated widely and appropriately based on the circumstances in each country," said a joint declaration issued at the end of the World Health Organization Congress on Traditional Medicine.

New York - While United Nations peacekeepers are accused of failing their duties in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN General Assembly president said Friday the conflict there has reached an unprecedented scale in brutality against women and girls.

"This makes MONUC's mandate impossible to achieve," said Miguel d'Escoto, president of the 192-nation assembly, referring to the UN Mission in Congo known as MONUC, composed of about 17,000 military troops, or one peacekeeper for every 10,000 Congolese.

Nairobi/Goma - African leaders attending an emergency summit in Nairobi on the conflict currently engulfing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have urged an immediate ceasefire and the extension of UN peacekeeping powers in the country.

The summit also called for the creation of humanitarian corridors to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in the North Kivu region of eastern Congo.

Geneva - Children have been recruited as soldiers by rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and woman and girls have suffered sexual violence, UN officials said Friday.

"The rebels need to immediately release the children," said Veronique Taveau of UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, adding that her organization was using the radio in Congo to issue this message to the fighters.

New Delhi - India will be sending a battalion of Gurkha soldiers to replace some of its troops on the United Nations peacekeeping mission in strife-torn Congo, a Defence Ministry spokesman said Friday.

India, with 4,500 troops, is one of the largest contributors to the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, usually referred to by its French acronym MONUC.

The Gurkha battalion would be sent to Congo by the end of November, army spokesman Virendra Singh said.