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Death toll from DR Congo violence now 12: protestors

Protesters in the Democratic Republic of Congo called for President Joseph Kabila to step down © AFP/File / John WESSELS

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Jan 2 – The death toll from a crackdown on New Year’s Eve protests in Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 12, protestors said on Tuesday.

“Eleven people died in Kinshasa and one in Kananga,” Jonas Tshombela, a spokesman for the protest organisers, told AFP.

Catholic and opposition groups on Sunday defied a ban on demonstrations demanding that President Joseph Kabila leave office.

They were met with a deadly crackdown by authorities, who fired tear gas into churches and bullets in the air to break up gatherings.

The protests took place on the first anniversary of a deal under which Kabila was scheduled to leave office in 2017 after fresh elections — a vote that has since been postponed until December 2018.

In contrast to the toll given by the protestors, the United Nations said in a statement Tuesday that “at least five people” were killed, adding that several others had been wounded and more than 120 arrested. On Sunday, a UN source said eight were killed and 123 arrested, including priests.

An AFP reporter at a demonstration in the central city of Kananga saw a man shot in the chest by soldiers who opened fire on worshippers.

Police spokesman colonel Rombaut-Pierrot Mwanamputu, meanwhile, said in a statement on Tuesday that “no deaths” had occurred in the context of the demonstrations.

On Sunday, he had said three civilians — “robbers” and “looters” — had been killed, in incidents that had occurred far from the protests. The DRC authorities also say a policeman was killed when a police station came under “attack.”

Meanwhile, the internet was restored on Tuesday after the government cut services for three days.

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The Congolese minister for telecommunications, Emery Okundji, ordered mobile operators to cut internet and SMS services “for reasons of state security” on Saturday.

Internet cuts are common during anti-government demonstrations in the vast, mineral-rich central African country.

Protesters want Kabila to promise he will not further extend his time in power in DRC, a mostly Catholic former Belgian colony.

In its statement on Tuesday, the UN reiterated its appeal to “all Congolese actors” to adhere to the December 31, 2016 agreement — “the only viable path to the holding of elections, the peaceful transfer of power and the consolidation of stability in the DRC.”

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