MONDAY, 12.00NOON
FIGHTING has broken out in the Congo capital of Brazzaville between armed supporters of former president Denis Sassou Nguesso and the army. Nguesso’s heavily armed supporters are reported to have taken control of the centre of he capital and surrounded key government offices. Hundreds are believed to have been killed in bitter fighting.
Fighting appears to have broken out after the army swooped on Nguessa’s headquarters in an attempt to disarm his private militia as part of a general clampdown on private militias in the run-up to presidential elections at the end of July. Nguessa was president for 13 years until his defeat in the 1992 elections.
Relief workers report bodies strewn in the streets. French soldiers, airlifted to Brazzaville in anticipation of crisis across the river in Kinshasa, have been driving around the city collecting French nationals. One French soldier was killed and several more injured.
Meanwhile, the department of foreign affairs says that nine South Africans are trapped in Brazzaville by the fighting. The department is trying to have them included in a French evacuation operation.
MONDAY, 4.00PM
REUTERS reports that France on Monday evacuated 350 foreigners from Brazzaville, with another 300 French nationals and other foreigners still awaiting evacuation from two Brazzaville hotels.
Included in the 350 rescued today were seven South Africans: Johan Erwin, James Smit, Theodore Hill, Thomas Newman, Shaun Krost, Pieter Liebenberg, Themba Mzibi, and Henry Jobo. The seven will be taken to Libreville in Gabon, from where they are to catch a flight home.
Gunfire in the city was reported to have died down to sporadic bursts by midday, but bodies of soldiers and civilians killed in the fighting still lay where they fell in the streets.
Diplomats have reported that an additional three companies of French troops were on their way to the Congolese capital, which would boost the French military presence from 300 troops to 750.
The United States on Sunday ordered non-essential US embassy employees and dependants of embassy personnel to leave and advised other Americans to do the same. South African oil and chemicals company Sasol said it had evacuated its four staff because of the violence.
A spokesman for Sassou Nguesso denied his side had started the fighting, saying they were simply defending themselves and demanded that Lissouba admit to being the aggressor as a condition for peace talks.
Sassou Nguesso, a former Marxist military leader, was named president in 1979 but voted out of office in 1992 after the advent of democratic reform. He has accused Lissouba of fomenting violence to postpone the July election.
A national mediation committee was set up on Sunday headed by Brazzaville mayor Bernard Kolelas, runner-up to Lissouba in the 1992 presidential election.