There are too many weapons in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the situation "could flare up very quickly", the European Union's force in the DRC warned on Thursday.
Eufor spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Thierry Fusalba told a news conference that the situation in the vast city was "calm but volatile".
"There are too many armed men and weapons circulating in Kinshasa. There are arms movements. It is a worry," he continued.
Alongside the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) and officers from forces loyal to President Joseph Kabila and Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba - the two candidates in next month's presidential election - Eufor has been running checks on a troop containment order issued last month.
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All troops in Kinshasa were ordered to return to their barracks in a mutual agreement between the two sides after 23 people died in three days of violence following the publication of first-round election results on August 20.
Fusalba on Thursday said that no serious violations of the ruling had been observed, but outlined a number of minor ones.
"There are soldiers who take their weapons home; that's a violation. There are armed soldiers who leave their barracks to go to the market; that's a violation," he explained.
He added that it was "very difficult" to enforce troop containment in a country where soldiers feel that they own their own guns and where barracks are not usually equipped with proper arms storage facilities.
Eufor has a thousand soldiers in Kinshasa and a thousand more held in reserve in Gabon, to help keep the DRC's fragile electoral process on the rails. It first intervened on August 21, sending tanks into Kinshasa's business district as the rival forces exchanged heavy gunfire.
Commenting on rumours that both Bemba's and Kabila's camps had been taking deliveries of reinforcements, Fusalba said that decisions needed to be made.
But he added that Eufor had no mandate to intervene, and that both candidates had a "right to protection".
Monuc, for its part, told AFP it was "following the situation closely" especially with regard to the delivery in late August and early September of 20 Soviet-made armoured personnel carriers and 9 T55 tanks to a Kinshasa depot.
The DRC's defence ministry says the vehicles were ordered in January 2004 and are for the use of the Congolese army's new, reformed brigades.
The electoral run-off between Bemba and Kabila is scheduled for October 29, as the culmination of a process towards democracy begun in 2003 when the DRC's bloody five-year civil and regional war officially ended. - Sapa-AFP
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