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/ 11 October 2007
Gunfire rang out Thursday near Mushaki in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Nord-Kivu province, a day after a renegade former general appealed for a truce with the army, the United Nations said. ”Firing is going on this morning 2km or 3km from Mushaki,” Prem Tiwari, local military spokesperson for the UN’s peacekeeping mission in DRC, said.
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/ 11 October 2007
Renegade former general Laurent Nkunda late on Wednesday called for a truce in his battle with the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo after at least 85 rebels died in four days of heavy clashes. Nkunda also offered to send 500 of his men to a transit camp pending their integration into the regular forces.
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/ 10 October 2007
More than 100 fighters, including 85 rebels, have been killed in clashes in the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a top army officer said on Wednesday. Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, the army’s second in command in the eastern province, said 16 troops and 85 rebels had been killed around Karuba.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) renegade general Laurent Nkunda on Monday abandoned a month-old ceasefire and blamed government army attacks for fresh fighting in an eastern border province. His announcement heralded more conflict and humanitarian suffering in DRC’s North Kivu province, which has long been a tinderbox of ethnic tensions.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila sacked his transport minister on Friday after an air crash that killed 52 people in the Central African country, which has one of the world’s worst aviation safety records. The decision was announced as DRC’s Cabinet met to discuss air safety after Thursday’s accident.
Thirty-eight people were killed in the crash of a Russian-made cargo plane in Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) capital Kinshasa on Thursday, the government said on Friday as it raised the provisional death toll. The Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs said the dead included 20 passengers and three crew who had been aboard the aircraft.
A Soviet-era Antonov 26 cargo plane crashed in Kinshasa on Thursday, smashing through a dozen houses and killing 25 people on board as well as a number of people on the ground, officials and the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said. Witnesses said it exploded in a fireball on impact.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Wednesday to beware of the macroeconomic effects of a planned -billion loan from China to modernise the vast African country’s decrepit infrastructure and mining industry.
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/ 29 September 2007
Seven new cases of the Ebola virus have been confirmed in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, taking the total number for the region to 24. ”The seven cases confirmed all come from the Kampungu area,” the epicentre of the haemorraghic fever located 150km north-west of Kananga, said a health ministry statement.
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/ 27 September 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hopes a new biometric identity card (ID) scheme backed by the European Union can help overhaul its undisciplined armed forces, branded by campaigners as the central African state’s worst rights abuser. After decades as a tool of repression under former leader Mobutu Sese Seko and a devastating 1998 to 2003 war, DRC’s army is bloated, unmanageable and corrupt.
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/ 25 September 2007
Six civilians were killed when Ugandan soldiers opened fire on a Congolese passenger boat on Lake Albert on Monday, in the latest border flare up between the Great Lakes neighbours. In a conflicting version of the shooting incident, Uganda’s military reported two soldiers killed, one from each country.
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/ 25 September 2007
International health agencies began on Monday to install two laboratories to test cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, amid fears of an epidemic of the disease, World Health Organisation (WHO) officials said. The two laboratories will allow a precise diagnosis within two to six hours.
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/ 22 September 2007
Nine cases of Ebola virus have been confirmed in the West Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that is at the epicentre of an outbreak that has killed at least 174 people, a World Health Organisation official said on Friday. Symptoms of the epidemic were first seen on April 27.
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/ 18 September 2007
China plans to lend the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) -billion to modernise its decrepit infrastructure and rich but deteriorated mining sector in another huge Chinese investment foray in Africa. Under a draft accord signed on Monday, Beijing earmarked the funds for major road and rail construction projects and for rehabilitation of DRC’s mining sector.
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/ 14 September 2007
Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are urgently searching for around 100 people believed to have been in contact with victims of the deadly Ebola virus, the government said on Friday. The DRC is fighting to contain an outbreak of Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever that kills 50% to 90% of those it infects
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/ 13 September 2007
Three mass graves have been uncovered in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where a renegade general, government forces and rebel groups have clashed for weeks, a United Nations mission said on Thursday. ”We do not know the exact number of victims but there are several in each of the graves,” Sylvie van den Wildenberg, a spokesperson, said.
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/ 8 September 2007
Fresh clashes have erupted between a renegade general and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The United Nations said violence in the region was hampering efforts to deliver food to tens of thousands of displaced
civilians.
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/ 6 September 2007
The United Nations fears that the refugee crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could worsen after the escalation of the conflict between government troops and soldiers loyal to a dissident general. Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said that the crisis could aggravate the situation throughout the country.
Renegade troops killed several regular army troops and wounded 30 others in five hours of heavy fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) eastern Nord-Kivu province early on Thursday, military and United Nations officials said. Soldiers serving General Laurent Nkunda attacked an army post, killed an undisclosed number and wounded 30 at Katale.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Transport Ministry has grounded two private airlines after a weekend plane crash killed 13 people in the second disaster since June, officials said on Wednesday. The licence of the Great Lakes Business Company, owner of the cargo plane that crashed on Sunday at Kongolo in Katanga Province, was suspended.
South African President Thabo Mbeki led a delegation of more than a dozen ministers to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday to sign deals on defence, transport and health as the former Belgian colony rebuilds after historic elections. The visit was the first such high-level meeting between the two nations since DRC elections last year.
A joint mission of several United Nations agencies is conducting an emergency investigation into the shooting of endangered mountain gorillas in a Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) national park, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) said on Saturday.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has suspended Tutsi-led military operations against Rwandan Hutu rebels in an effort to avoid further ethnic tension in the country’s troubled east, a senior army official said on Saturday. At least 165Â 000 civilians have fled fighting in DRC’s North Kivu province since February.
United Nations peacekeepers from Pakistan arranged armed escorts and provided food for illegal gold smugglers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but did not themselves trade weapons for gold, according to a United Nations report seen by Reuters on Friday.
A train crash in a remote part of Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 100 people and injured more than 200, the Central African country’s minister of information said on Thursday. Injured survivors initially walked or were transported by bicycle from the scene of the wreck 12km to the nearest hospital.
A train crash in a remote location in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) killed at least 68 people, the United Nations peacekeeping force said on Thursday. ”There are 68 dead and 128 severely wounded,” UN mission spokesperson Kemal Saiki said. The accident took place late on Wednesday near Benaleka.
Delegates from 20 African countries began talks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday on the process of disarming and reintegrating former combatants to boost peace on the continent. The United Nations chose to hold the second international conference on disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration in the capital of the DRC.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) denied a report on Tuesday by Zimbabwe state media that it had cut off power supplies to the energy starved Southern African state. ”There was a problem with the line over the weekend. A cable fell. But we worked on it Saturday and Sunday,” Energy Minister Salomon Banamuhere told Reuters.
The head of the air force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) grounded domestic flights on Friday when he banned aircraft at Kinshasa’s international airport from refuelling, airport sources said. About 10 planes were affected when General John Numbi sent troops to seal off access to fuel tanks at N’Djili airport, the sources said.
At least 29 people were killed over the weekend by Rwandan rebels wielding machetes, sticks and hammers who descended on a village in far eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a United Nations official said. The bodies of 17 villagers killed in their sleep were recovered on Sunday.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) militia are threatening to slaughter rare mountain gorillas in DRC’s Virunga National Park after they raided the eastern reserve at the weekend, killing a wildlife officer, officials said. Up to three more local wildlife workers were injured in the attacks early on Sunday by Mai Mai militia fighters.
At least 42 Rwandan Hutu rebels and four government soldiers have been killed in a crackdown by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s military in the strife-torn east, the United Nations said on Wednesday. The FDLR have lost at least 42 men, while four DRC soldiers have died in a combat zone north of the eastern town of Goma.