Clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) capital last week left between 200 and 500 dead, the German ambassador said on Tuesday as European Union envoys expressed concern at the force used by government troops against political opponents.
The figure came from hospital sources, aid groups and diplomats, the German envoy, Karl-Albrecht Wokalek, told a press conference given by 14 EU ambassadors.
Government troops fought fighters loyal to former vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba in Kinshasa on Thursday and Friday and scores of civilians were among the victims.
The Caritas aid group had previously given an estimate of 155 dead and 150 badly wounded while the last government toll spoke of 60 dead.
”There were enormous numbers of civilian casualties. Shells fell on the district, on homes. We will probably never know the exact number of victims,” Britain’s ambassador Andy Sparkes told journalists.
In a joint statement, the ambassadors said there were numerous cases of rape and pillage by both sides. The Spanish and Greek embassies and the United Nations Children’s Fund offices in Kinshasa were bombed during the fighting.
They condemned what they called ”the premature use of force while not all paths of negotiation had been exhausted” between the government and Bemba.
Government forces unleashed their offensive after Bemba refused to integrate his militia into the army. Bemba has sought refuge at the South African embassy while President Joseph Kabila’s government has issued treason charges against him.
The EU ambassadors said they were seeking a diplomatic solution for Bemba and called on Kabila’s government ”to do everything to assure the existence of a democratic space in order to guarantee the free expression of all political opinions.”
Bemba lost to Kabila in the presidential election last year, stepping up rivalry between the two.
Kabila on Monday defended the use of force to quash what he described as an armed rebellion by Bemba’s fighters.
”Order had to be restored at any cost,” Kabila said, accusing Bemba’s militia of trying to seize control of the capital.
”You do not guarantee security through negotiation,” he told reporters, in an apparent response to the mounting international calls from the United Nations, the African Union and various countries for dialogue.
About 2 000 troops had fought Bemba’s 700 fighters in the Gombe district of the capital on Thursday and Friday.
Most of Bemba’s fighters have fled or agreed to join government forces, but 107 have taken refuge at the United Nations mission in Kinshasa, fearing for their lives, the UN said.
Bemba said he was prepared to go into exile if his security could not be guaranteed by Kinshasa. In an interview with Paris daily Le Monde he accused Kabila of wanting to ”get rid” of him.
”We are at a turning point in our history, because if they continue to decapitate the opposition, a new dictatorship will be established,” he said.
But Kabila denied any intention of making the DRC a one-party state.
”I would be the last person to violate the constitution. Setting up a single party smacks of high treason,” he said.
The DRC was the centre of a brutal five-year war from 1998. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and at its height, the conflict in the former Zaire drew in seven foreign armies. — AFP
