Army clashes kill 18 in east DR Congo as election tensions rise
BUKAVU
(DR Congo): Clashes between the army and rebels loyal to a renegade former general in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have killed 18 people, military sources said on Monday, in the latest violence before crucial elections to replace President Joseph Kabila this month.
Fighting killed 14 rebels and four soldiers in Fizi, a region of South Kivu, a mineral-rich province which is prone to ethnic tensions, the sources said.
The sources said one soldier and two rebels were killed early on Monday in fighting.
Earlier, army spokesman Captain Dieudonne Kaserek, said 12 rebel fighters were killed including a deputy commander known as Alida. He said three of the soldiers drowned in a river during combat.
Violence in the troubled eastern region is just one complication before December 23 elections in DR Congo, which has not seen a peaceful transfer of power since independence. Under international pressure, Kabila has agreed to step aside, but critics worry he will try to engineer a win for his handpicked successor, former hardline interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.
The eastern clashes pit the military against rebels loyal to a former army general, William Amuri Yakutumba, whose militia is one of the armed groups operating in the region against Kabila. The militia is allied to rebels of the National Liberation Front based in neighbouring Burundi, according to several regional sources.
In September of last year the Yakutumba rebels attacked the town of Uvira on Lake Tanganyika opposite the Burundian capital Bujumbura. UN forces pushed them back with Congolese support.
In February the military said they had wiped out the Yakutumba with help from Burundi, where some of them had taken refuge.
Kabila’s second and final elected term finished nearly two years ago, but he has remained in office thanks to a caretaker clause in the constitution.