WOMEN and children, some as young as eight, are fighting with militia forces that have attacked villages in eastern Congo and killed dozens while forcing more than 70,000 people to flee their homes, a UN spokesman has claimed.

UN officials defended peacekeepers who killed up to 60 militiamen in a gunbattle in Congo, saying the international troops were acting in self-defence and protecting civilians who had been terrorised for years.

UN peacekeepers killed as many as 60 militia members in a vicious gun fight in north-eastern Congo, a UN spokesman said today.

UNITED NATIONS air and ground patrols have spotted signs of major Rwandan troop movements inside Congo, a move that threatens to reawaken central Africa’s devastating six-nation war.