By David Lewis
Kinshasa - Three soldiers were killed in eastern Congo when two army units opened fire on each other during a visit by one of the country's vice-presidents to the troubled region, the United Nations said on Sunday.
The shooting in Bukavu highlights the instability of Congo's east following an uprising by dissident army officers who seized the town in early June, before withdrawing to a lakeside base some 100 km to the north where they remain.
Vice-President Azarias Ruberwa, also head of the former Rwandan-backed rebel group the renegade soldiers belong to, is visiting the east to persuade rebel fighters and politicians to lay down arms and rejoin the transitional process.
"There was shooting on Saturday afternoon between units of Congo's army based near the airport. Three people were killed and another is seriously injured," UN spokesperson Iliane Nabaa said from Bukavu.
Congo's transitional government has been struggling to integrate former rebels into a cohesive national army.
"There have been tensions surrounding the security of vice-president Ruberwa, but this clash followed arguments between two officers in the Congolese army," Nabaa said.
Congolese security sources told Reuters that Ruberwa's bodyguards were upset about not being allowed to take full control of Bukavu airport to prepare for the vice president's visit and opened fire first.
The crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has rocked its attempted transition to democracy following the end of a five-year war that involved six neighbouring countries and killed three million people, mostly from related hunger and disease.
Elections are due in less than 12 months but the former warring parties in the government remain deeply divided and tensions with neighbouring Rwanda have continued to delay the peace process.
Last month a UN-commissioned report accused Rwanda of providing direct and indirect support for the uprising in eastern Congo. Kigali rejected the charges as "outrageous".
Two rebels recruited in Rwanda and sent to Congo to fight alongside rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, who orchestrated the Bukavu insurgency, were being held by local authorities in the town, Nabaa said.
"These men are Rwandans and they say that they left Nkunda's ranks as they were unhappy with the conditions. It is unclear what is going to happen to them."