By Joe Bavier KINSHASA, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Rebels in Congo's east took 15 army soldiers hostage and killed or wounded several more during five days of gun battles, U.N. officials said on Thursday. An army commander in the eastern region of Ituri said government troops had quelled the fighting with elements of the Front of Nationalists and Integrationalists (FNI) which broke out in the village of Laudjo. The FNI, one of three Ituri militias which signed peace deals in mid-November, is holding 15 Congolese army soldiers hostage, U.N. military spokesman Lt. Col. Didier Rancher said. Three years after a peace deal to end a 1998-2003 war, the east of Democratic Republic of Congo still suffers human rights abuses and atrocities by both rebels and the army, despite the world's largest U.N. peacekeeping force. "We have the situation under control," General Vainqueur Malaya, the Congolese army's commander in Ituri, told Reuters. He said four government soldiers had been killed while rebels had sustained heavy losses. Rancher said the army had suffered around 19 casualties, both dead and wounded. He could not provide figures for the FNI, one of several armed groups operating in Ituri. Both sides have denied starting the fighting in villages around 100 km (60 miles) north of Ituri's capital Bunia. The fighting coincided with a spike in violence in neighbouring North Kivu, where renegade General Laurent Nkunda's troops are battling government forces. Congo's army led offensives to dislodge Nkunda's forces from the town of Sake, 28 km (17 miles) west of the provincial capital, Goma in late November. Five soldiers were injured in further clashes with fighters loyal to Nkunda on Thursday. STEPS TOWARDS PEACE President Joseph Kabila was sworn in this month, becoming Congo's first freely elected leader in more than four decades. The vote, backed by the international community, ended a three-year transitional period. While many in Congo's army would like to take a tougher stance on the rebels, they depend on the United Nations to carry out military operations. The U.N. mission has consistently voiced its support for negotiated settlements. U.N. officials said they did not believe the Ituri clashes were part of an organized offensive. Since November's peace deals, army and militia forces have operated in close proximity, raising the likelihood of the rival forces coming into contact. "We think it started as a misunderstanding," the U.N.'s acting spokesman in Bunia, Florient Barby, said. "We are still at a stage where this can be considered an incident." In a step toward peace, the Congolese Revolutionary Movement (MRC), which signed the November 17 deal together with the FNI, sent 300 of its fighters to a disarmament camp on Thursday.
