U.N. council approves increase in Congo peacekeepers

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to send some 3,000 additional U.N. peacekeepers to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help prevent a new war in the country's east.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, known by its French acronym MONUC, is the world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping operation and will have just over 20,000 troops and police once the reinforcements are deployed.

Aid organizations have criticized MONUC for allowing a humanitarian disaster to develop in eastern Congo, an area the size of France where around a quarter of a million people have fled recent fighting between the Congolese army and Tutsi rebels.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Patrick Worsnip)