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By David Lewis

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Security forces shot in the air and lobbed teargas at thousands of protesters who marched through Congo's rundown capital on Thursday, demanding the government's resignation over delayed elections.

"We have information about four people who seem to have been killed but we need to confirm this," said Kemal Saiki, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Congo, a former Belgian colony still recovering from one of Africa's deadliest conflicts.

Army helicopters clattered over Kinshasa as protesters clutching handkerchiefs over their eyes hurled stones at riot police. Trucks of soldiers raced at the crowds and troops erected barricades to hamper the protesters' progress.

Fears had been running high that frustration among Congo's 60 million people could boil over this week, the original deadline laid down for elections under a 2003 peace deal to end a five-year war that sucked in six neighbouring states.

Despite two years of peace, the resource-rich nation the size of Western Europe has seen little economic progress and the government has failed to impose its authority over vast areas of the east, where armed gangs pillage and kill with impunity.

In another sign of nationwide tension, machinegun fire rang out in the eastern town of Goma, near the border with Rwanda, on Thursday afternoon, the United Nations and residents said.

The Kinshasa protests were led by the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) which says President Joseph Kabila's transitional government should resign.

"The people were just trying to demonstrate peacefully but soldiers came in and started firing," said Lysee Dimandja, a member of parliament. "This is a shame for our institutions. It will just antagonise the population."

"We're just trying to demonstrate peacefully and they started shooting," said a young man, running from the protests in another part of the sprawling city of 9 million.

PROTESTERS INJURED

Government wrangling, logistical delays and fighting in the east were behind the election delay. Some Congolese also suspect politicians of procrastinating to keep the perks of power.

A police spokeswoman said later the situation was calm. Several demonstrators were arrested.

Some protesters had scrawled "One plus four equals zero" on Kinshasa's rock-littered streets, a reference to Kabila and the four vice presidents of the transitional government.

A doctor at one of Kinshasa's main hospitals said seven injured civilians were being treated including three women who had been shot at home and a person who was bayoneted in the head.

"This is nothing but an appeal for civil disobedience. The police will do as they do in any country, maintain public order," said government spokesman Henri Mova Sakanyi.

In Brussels, Congo's former colonial master, around 700 demonstrators near the Congolese embassy threw street signs and other objects at police who repelled them with water cannon.

Congo's war killed around four million people mainly from conflict-related hunger and disease. The country's east is still a hotbed of regional tensions, and Uganda warned this month that armed groups there were planning to attack its territory.

The United Nations has more than 16,000 troops in Congo, its biggest peacekeeping mission in the world.