Several light tanks loaded with heavily armed French troops rumbled past the headquarters of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) at dusk as if to remind the 50 or so young men hanging outside, some in camouflage and grenades on their belts, that it was time to go.

As the last daylight faded, several vehicles laden with guns, mattresses, men and young girls drove out of the town, where inter-ethnic clashes killed hundreds of people last month, sparking the deployment of the troops.

The final details and the geographic limits of Operation Bunia Town Without Arms were laid out earlier during meetings with UPC leader Thomas Lubanga.

Lubanga, his political entourage and a security detail of 30 men will stay in Bunia, but these guards, like all other residents, will no longer be able to be seen with their weapons on the streets.

Clearing up such technicalities led the ultimatum to be extended by a day Tuesday, although by that point very few of the gunmen who recently roamed the town in large numbers were visible anyway.

Lubanga made no demands for the force to provide additional guarantees for his security, Colonel Gerard Dubois, spokesman for the force which has a UN mandate to secure Bunia and protect its population, said.

The area around Bunia is rife with rival armed groups.

"We have the means and the men to secure Bunia," Dubois told reporters.

According to a map he showed journalists, the ban affects a roughly circular area of approximately 100 square kilometres (40 square miles), which includes the town's airport.

The measure does not oblige combattants to quit Bunia, but merely forbids them from displaying their weapons in public.

Nor does it apply to some 700 French troops attached to the EU force or an equal number of Uruguayan military guards deployed under a separate UN mission in DRC, called MONUC.

In keeping with the force's avowed refusal to "cooperate or collaborate" with any of Ituri region's many armed groups, Dubois insisted there had been no negotiations with Lubanga and added that the rebel leader signed no document of compliance.

"There was no deal. We gave him obligations in writing signed by General (Jean-Paul) Thonier," the commander of the EU force, said the spokesman.

Officials with the force have repeatedly said any visible weapons found after the deadline would be confiscated, but never specified exactly how this would done.

Lubanga has also been told to tell the force exactly where he has encamped his men outside the perimeter.

WAR.WIRE