Self-employed diamond diggers have killed 19 street urchins in the central Democratic Republic of Congo town of Mbuji-Mayi, allegedly in revenge for theft, press reports in Kinshasa said on Monday.
The attacks took place in the DRC diamond capital on Saturday after people who make a living searching for the stones hunted down the youths who allegedly stole part of their haul, the daily La Tempete des Tropiques reported.
The trouble began when a gang of urchins locally known as ”Bana ba mu tshisalu” (children who live in the market) attacked diamond dealers panning the Lubilanji river and allegedly stole some of their pickings, according to Le Potentiel daily.
Witnesses reached in Mbuji-Mayi by telephone confirmed the reports of the killings.
”There were street kids who were clubbed to death, others burned alive or stoned by the diamond diggers, who had had enough of their aggressive behaviour,” said a local journalist who asked not to be named.
The attack on the diamond hunters was not the first, said the journalist, who added that the market urchins ”behave like real outlaws and defy the authorities”.
The governor of Kasai Orientale province, Dominique Kanku, cut short a mission to Kinshasa to go back to Mbuji-Mayi. In a local radio broadcast, he condemned the killings, saying the diamond hunters should not take the law into their hands.
He also urged parents in the city to find their children and take them in.
Mbuji-Mayi has the largest number of homeless children in DRC after the capital Kinshasa. – Sapa-AFP