The ministers were due to arrive late on Thursday in Entebbe, Uganda, where the European Union's French-led force has its operational headquarters.

Alliot-Marie and Flahaut are to meet Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Friday and thank him for Uganda's support for the peacekeeping mission, before heading to the DRC to visit the troops in the town of Bunia.

The EU sent around 1,850 soldiers from nine countries to Bunia in June to quell a wave of ethnic bloodletting between members of the Lendu and Hema communities, marking the first ever EU military intervention in a conflict on another continent.

The troops, of which some 1,500 are French, were given a mandate by the United Nations after it became clear that the 700 Uruguayan UN peacekeepers already deployed to the troubled Ituri Province would not be enough to stem the rising tide of violence.

Belgium, the DRC's former colonial master, has contributed 53 soldiers to the mission, which also has Belgian, French and Brazilian transport planes at its disposal along with four Mirage fighters, helicopters and a reconnaissance plane.

Codenamed Artemis, the mission is expected to end on September 1, when a strengthened UN force is scheduled to take over.

The UN Security Council on Monday agreed to double the ranks of its own mission to the DRC to 10,800, also giving it extra powers to use force to protect civilians and humanitarian staff.

The UN force, known by its French acronym as MONUC, is due to deploy a 3,800-strong mainly Bangladeshi brigade to Bunia to relieve the Artemis troops.

On Friday evening, the French and Belgian ministers are due to return to the Entebbe base, where they will have dinner with its 600-strong military staff before travelling to Kinshasa the following day, for talks with DRC President Joseph Kabila.

Kabila is heading a new transition government set up on June 30 under a peace pact signed last December.

The accord ended a bitter civil war in which humanitarian agencies say around 2.5 million people had died since 1998, either in combat or from the disease and food shortages it caused.

French officials say they see the emerging internal reconciliation in the DRC as a first step towards strengthening bilateral cooperation, helping to shore up the fragile peace.

The two ministers' talks with the Ugandan and DRC leaders are also expected to touch on the conflicts in Sudan and Burundi, according to a source in Alliot-Marie's entourage.

WAR.WIRE