Is the Congo River open again

A.� Yes. The United Nations Security Council has declared the 2,720-mile river open to commercial traffic.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Why was it closed

A.� This vast trade artery has been in the hands of the many armed factions in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the last 30 months. The security council's decision is a huge step toward resuming aid shipments and reviving the trade that supported millions before the nation disintegrated into war.

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Q.� So why is the river so important

A.� The republic is a quarter the size of the United States, but has only a few thousand miles of roads, mostly bad ones, hardly any working railways and exorbitantly expensive airlines.

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Q.� When will it reopen

A.� Commercial traffic will resume after 8 June, when armed UN forces begin patrolling it. Some 250 Uruguayan marines will have the authority to shoot back if attacked. The Congo River, criss-crossing the equator and sometimes 10 miles wide, is the largest in Africa after the Nile and second only to the Amazon in the volume it carries.

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Q.� So what's the war about

A.� Joseph Kabila is president of Congo - but the country, rich in minerals, has become a series of military fiefdoms. An estimated 2.5 million people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the fighting. Congo's civil war has drawn in the armies of five foreign nations, with Rwandan and Ugandan troops backing Congolese rebels and the forces of Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia defending the government.

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Q.� And the river closure has made matters worse

A.� Yes - and appalling so. Farmers in the most fertile regions have been planting only enough to feed themselves, while countless Congolese in cut-off cities are getting by on only one meal a day or less. In Kinshasa, the capital, aid organisations estimate the city's 8 million people are getting only half the food they need.

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Celinne Ekanga, a businesswoman when river business was thriving, who has now been forced to take a job as a waitress, said:� 'With the stopping of traffic on the river, the country is all but paralysed.'

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Michel Nourredime Kassa, of UN's humanitarian efforts in Congo, predicted reopening the river to normal trade would help 13 million Congolese significantly. 'If we reopen the routes, reopen the river, we do a better job than if we bring in 800,000 tons of humanitarian aid,' he said. Another 2 or 3 million people in the rebel-held east required more urgent relief, he said.

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Q.� So has this brought hope of peace

A.� Some - but peace is still a long way off.� Security Council Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said: 'The moment has come for peace. And with the time of peace must come an economic rebirth.' But Congolese President Joseph Kabila expressed disappointment with the level of UN troop contributions to his country. He said about 20,000 peacekeeper were needed. The UN has so far deployed 1,300 troops to Congo.

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By Steve Cunningham