Angola expels DRC smugglers

– About 380 000 illegal migrants, mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, have left Angola in less than a month during a massive operation targeting diamond smuggling, a minister said on Saturday.

On a visit to Dundo in northern Angola on the border with DR Congo, Pedro Sebastiao dismissed allegations that the migrants had been violently expelled and often beaten by police.

Sebastiao, a state minister, told travelling reporters that diamonds worth more than $1 million had been seized. –

Dundo