Tag Archives: DR Congo

17 dead as DR Congo police clash with cult members

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Seventeen people have been killed in clashes between DR Congo police and members of a cult that believes the end of President Joseph Kabila’s mandate will usher in the apocalypse, a regional governor said Thursday.

Bienvenu Esimba, governor of DR Congo’s northwestern Mongala province, said the clashes broke out Wednesday in the provincial capital Lisala when members of the sect burned dozens of houses and attacked a market before launching an assault on local electoral commission offices.

“The toll from the clashes is 14 militiamen from the political-religious cult and three dead police officers,” Mr Esimba said by telephone, adding that cult leader Wami-Nene was among those killed.

A local Catholic priest confirmed that cult members had launched the attack.

DR Congo is mired in political crisis two days after President Kabila’s second and final term in office had been due to end on December 20, with no indications that he is planning to step down.

Esimba said the cult members, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, had burned 47 houses and attacked the offices of the electoral commission because they judged the institution to be “useless”.

Troops had to step in to “neutralise” the guru Wami-Nene during the three hours of violence until midday on Wednesday, he said, adding that security forces had “acted in legitimate defence”.

The situation was calm by Thursday morning, Esimba said.

Lisala lies on the Congo river deep in the rainforest, some 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) northeast of the capital Kinshasa.

Tear gas fired in DR Congo at anti-Kabila protesters.

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Police have fired tear gas to disperse protesters demanding an end to President Joseph Kabila’s rule in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa, witnesses say.

Gunfire was also heard in the second city Lubumbashi, but it was unclear who was behind the shooting, reports said.

Mr Kabila’s main rival said his refusal to step down amounted to a coup.

The president’s 15-year rule was supposed to end on Monday at midnight, but has been extended to 2018.

The electoral commission cancelled elections due last month, citing logistical and financial difficulties in organising them.

Mr Kabila has now formed a 74-member transitional government to lead the vast central African state until elections are held in 2018.

In a video posted on social media, main opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi called for peaceful protests to demand Mr Kabila’s resignation.

“I launch a solemn appeal to the Congolese people to not recognize the… illegal and illegitimate authority of Joseph Kabila and to peacefully resist [his] coup d’etat,” Mr Tshisekedi said.

Demonstrators have set up barricades and burned tyres in parts of Kinshasa and Lubumbashi in the south of the country.

Mr Tshisekedi’s message was not available in DR Congo where authorities authorities have restricted access to social media networks, the AFP news agency reports.

DR Congo has not had a smooth transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.

Mr Kabila took power in 2001 following the assassination of his father Laurent Kabila.

The constitution bars him from seeking a third term in office.

DR Congo Arrests Top Rwandan Rebel

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DR Congo’s army on Monday announced the arrest of a senior member of the FDLR, the Rwandan Hutu rebel force accused of regular atrocities on Congolese soil.

Army spokesman Major Guillaume Ndjike told AFP that Habiarimana Mucebo Sofuni had been captured in Rutshuru, in the restive eastern DR Congo’s Nord-Kivu province.

Sofuni served as a commander in charge of intelligence for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), created by Rwandan Hutu refugees in the eastern DRC after the genocide of Tutsis by majority Hutus in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994.

A local rights group, the Centre for the Promotion of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights (CEPADHO), said Sofuni had been detained Sunday.

Sofuni “has been transferred to (regional capital) Goma for interrogation,” Ndjike said, without giving details of the circumstances of his arrest.

The FDLR, opposed to the current Rwandan government, has not launched any large-scale offensive in Rwanda since 2001. The group is regularly accused of committing atrocities against civilians in the zones under its control in the eastern DRC.

Some of its founders are wanted by international prosecutors, accused of playing an active part in the genocide.

In August the Congolese army arrested Patrick Sabimana — security chief to Rwandan Hutu leader Sylvestre Mudacumura, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges including rape, torture and pillage.

Eastern DR Congo has been torn for more than two decades by armed conflicts fed by ethnic and land disputes, competition for control of a wealth of mineral resources, and regional rivalries.

Credit:

http://guardian.ng/news/dr-congo-arrests-top-rwandan-rebel/

Army Clashes with ‘Rebels’ Blamed for DR Congo Massacres

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The Congolese army clashed Monday with suspected Ugandan rebels blamed for two massacres in the town of Beni in the volatile east of Democratic Republic of Congo, a senior official said.

 The rebels were “organising themselves” for another possible attack on the town — the scene of two bloodbaths in almost as many weeks — when troops came upon them, the governor of troubled North Kivu province Julien Paluku told AFP.

Soldiers freed a hostage, but the shooting stopped as night fell, he said. “We couldn’t see the enemy… and we risked falling into an ambush.”

The fighting erupted as families in Beni were preparing to bury the dead from the latest attack when 11 people were killed — mostly hacked to death with machetes — in a raid on Saturday night.

Credit: Yahoo News