The UN soldiers serving in DR Congo exchanged food and information for gold and dollars for some months in 2005 and 2006, several officials from the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC) told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

The exchange took place with rebels of the chiefly Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), they said.

The Indian MONUC troops in Nord-Kivu province were based at Nyabiondo, more than 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of the provincial capital, Goma.

MONUC spokesman Kemal Saiki said Friday the UN's internal investigation department, based in Nairobi, had opened an inquiry as soon as the mission had been made aware of allegations concerning gold trafficking.

But he was unable to say when the investigation had begun or what period it covered.

In a confidential note dated July 2006 to one of MONUC's most senior officials, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, a mission official recommended that the then commander, a general, be immediately sent back to New Delhi.

"Serious allegations have been made against the Commander of the Indian Brigade, to the effect that he and other Indian officers acting under his instructions have been trading in gold," the note stated.

It said that "some North Kivu Brigade have sold their rations, reportedly for gold", adding that "the rations have come on sale in the market at Nyabiondo".

The area of Nyabiondo has long been under the control of the FDLR who work the gold mines there.

The FDLR have been based in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, bordering Rwanda and Uganda, for the past 13 years and are seen as a major source of instability in the Great Lakes region.

Many members are suspected of taking part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda which, according to the United Nations, claimed the lives of 800,000 ethnic minority group Tutsis and moderates of the majority group, the Hutus.

FDLR officers, whose statements AFP obtained, described close links in the summer of 2006 between FDLR commanders and UN peacekeepers at Nyabiondo, who fed them advance information of anti-rebel operations.