KINSHASA, Aug 21: A second day of fighting between soldiers loyal to Congolese President Joseph Kabila and supporters of an election rival pinned down foreign envoys in Kinshasa on Monday after the announcement of a run-off vote.
Witnesses said presidential guards, using tanks and heavy machine guns, opened fire around a house in the capital where U.N. officials and ambassadors were meeting Kabila’s main political rival, former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba.
A U.N. spokesman said those trapped by the gun battles included the U.N. mission chief for Democratic Republic of Congo, William Swing, and ambassadors from a group of foreign donors known by its French acronym CIAT.
The fighting erupted for a second day hours after electoral officials announced a presidential run-off vote between Kabila and Bemba following historic elections on July 30. They were the first free polls for more than four decades in the vast, war-battered former Belgian colony.
While Bemba’s spokesmen said heavily armed members of Kabila’s presidential guard had attacked the candidate’s followers around his riverside house, the presidency said they acted to deal with what they saw as an armed threat to Kabila.
Some Kabila spokesmen said Bemba’s followers, some of whom wore red bandanas, had fired on the presidency.
“Swing and the CIAT ambassadors are in Bemba’s residency. They are safe and sound. Everybody will be held accountable by the international community for whatever happens,” U.N. mission spokesman Kemal Saiki said.
“This seems to have started when the presidential guard went to disarm what they call militias there,” he added.
U.N. armoured personnel carriers deployed in the area around the house. “The idea would be to go in with APCs when the firing stops and get these people out,” a U.N. military source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.—Reuters
