Kinshasa, Congo – Supporters backing the two candidates in Congo’s presidential runoff election battled in the streets of the capital Saturday, sending residents running for cover and leaving at least two civilians dead, witnesses and U.N. peacekeepers said.
Fighters fired mortar rounds and handed out ammunition at the residence of Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba, who is trailing President Joseph Kabila as vote-counting continues in elections meant to bring lasting peace to Congo after a 1998-2002 war.
An incoming round exploded near the home, sending a group of people diving for cover, and bursts of automatic-weapons fire crackled for hours in Kinshasa, Congo’s battered capital.
U.N. peacekeepers behind sandbagged positions near the fighting said Bemba’s supporters were battling Kabila’s loyalists. The peacekeepers declined to be named, saying they were not authorized to speak to the media.
In August, security force loyalists of the two candidates fought for three days in Kinshasa, leaving 23 people dead.
At Bemba’s residence, the site of the heaviest fighting in August’s clashes, two wounded soldiers dripped blood onto the floor. Dozens of fighters – some in military uniform – brandished machine guns and pistols.
Police said two civilians were killed and one policeman was wounded in the fighting.
The violence subsided after U.N. officials arranged a meeting between representatives of the two candidates, but tensions in the city along the banks of the Congo River remained high as U.N. troops in armored personnel carriers stepped up patrols and riot police guarded strategic buildings.
During one lull in the fighting, several Uruguayan peacekeepers near Bemba’s residence ran into a road to escort two uniformed schoolchildren.
The fighting began after police fired in the air to disperse protesters burning tires in the streets around Bemba’s residence.
U.N. military spokesman Lt. Col. Stephane Lescoffit said it was unclear which loyalist group fired first. He said he did not know whether fighters were firing in the air or at each other.
Moise Musangana, a spokesman for Bemba, said the ex-rebel chief was not home as fighting broke out.
The demonstrators were Bemba supporters who are alleging fraud in partial results from the Oct. 29 vote that put Kabila in the lead.
The latest results released Friday by the electoral commission are being challenged by Bemba supporters. With nearly two-thirds of the ballots from the Oct. 29 runoff counted, Kabila leads with about 61 percent of the vote, compared with 39 percent for Bemba.
The runoff vote is the culmination of a four-year transition process meant to transform the troubled mineral-rich Central African nation into a democracy after decades of dictatorship and a 1998-2002 war that left rebels in control of rival fiefdoms in the north and east.
With Ugandan backing, Bemba ruled a swathe of northeast Congo around his stronghold in Equateur province for several years before accepting a post as one of four vice presidents in the transitional administration set up in 2003 after a peace deal reunited the country.
Some 17,500 U.N. peacekeepers – the world body’s largest force anywhere – are overseeing the transition in Congo, which gained independence from Belgium in 1960. The current military includes troops drawn from opposing wartime factions who remain loyal to their former leaders, like Bemba or Kabila.
