Gunbattles rocked the Democratic Republic of Congo capital Kinshasa for a third day on Tuesday after the announcement of a presidential run-off vote following July 30 elections, witnesses said.
Heavy gunfire was heard near the area where United Nations and European peacekeepers on Monday rescued a group of foreign ambassadors trapped by fighting between soldiers loyal to President Joseph Kabila and supporters of an election rival.
A Reuters correspondent in Kinshasa heard both small arms fire and the occasional thump of heavier weaponry on Tuesday and saw two Congolese army tanks moving in the direction of the latest fighting.
Uruguayan troops using armoured vehicles and supported by Spanish legionnaires had on Monday escorted the UN and foreign envoys from the house of Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba in Kinshasa where they were pinned down by gunbattles.
The Spanish troops, part of a European Union military force in the DRC, had been deployed during Monday night to secure the city’s main boulevard.
They were seeing and hearing gunbattles going on around them on Tuesday, diplomats said, following sporadic gunfire during most of the night. Several UN armoured vehicles had been put in position around Bemba’s house.
The United Nations has its biggest peacekeeping force in the world — more than 17 000-strong — deployed in the DRC.
The July polls were the first free national vote for more than four decades in the vast, mineral-rich, war-scarred former Belgian colony.
As no candidate gained enough votes to win the presidential election outright, electoral officials announced on Sunday that Kabila and Bemba, the two leading contenders, would face off in a second round run-off on October 29. – Reuters