New York (PTI): As the situation in North Kivu province deteriorates further, the United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo has asked the Security Council to provide 3,000 additional troops to buttress beleaguered peacekeepers in the country's eastern region which is witnessing fierce conflict.

Currently, the UN peacekeeping mission in the country, known as 'MONUC', has nearly 6,000 troops in North Kivu province, which has been wracked by fighting between government forces and rebel militias.

The Council's authorisation for extra forces will "enable us to reinforce our presence, particularly in North Kivu, which is really needed given the pressures on us from many direction," Alan Doss, the Secretary-General's Special Representative, told reporters in New York via video link from the DRC.

Doss, who heads MONUC, said the mission is trying simultaneously to "stabilise the situation in these areas where the conflict is taking place as well as provide support for humanitarian interventions."

Relief supplies are being delivered by truck to Rutshuru, north of the provincial capital Goma, and the UN is continuing with its efforts to move people uprooted by conflict away from the front lines of the fighting, he said.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, now serving as the Secretary-General's special envoy, has met with President Joseph Kabila of the DRC and Jos Eduardo dos Santos of Angola.

On Sunday, Obasanjo held talks with renegade general Laurent Nkunda, who heads the militia known as the Congress in Defence of the People (CNDP).

Following their talks, the CNDP announced that it will review the ceasefire and "pull back from certain areas," which will become a zone of separation, Doss said.

Patrolled by MONUC, this zone running from east to west and situated some 100 km north of Goma is expected to serve as a "means of de-escalating the conflict and creating space between the armed groups and the national armed forces".

The mission is also trying to arrange talks between the national armed forces (FARDC), and CNDP to "build on the dynamics that's been created by Obasanjo over the last three or four days to try to stabilise the situation, improve the humanitarian access and then of course pave the way for the political and diplomatic processes to go forward," Doss said, emphasising that "these problems are not going to be solved by force."

Over the weekend, the Congolese and Rwandan government representatives met to discuss key issues.

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme said today that it is increasing its food distributions in the war-ravaged east of the DRC in a bid to reach almost 100,000 people uprooted by fighting.