Congolese troops killed dozens of armed youths who attacked the airport, a military barracks and state television headquarters in the capital Kinshasa yesterday, in what appeared to be a failed assault by followers of a disgruntled religious leader.
Before transmission was shut down at the state television, the attackers shouted slogans in favour of pastor Paul Joseph Mukungubila and against President Joseph Kabila.
Information minister says situation under control
Afterwards several corpses lay on the rain-soaked ground outside the brightly-painted gates of state television centre, a Reuters witness said. The broadcaster reported that security forces had killed 46 of the attackers, while government officials said about 20 more had been arrested.
Shortly after the clashes, soldiers in the eastern mining province of Katanga attacked a church run by Mukungubila, a self-proclaimed ‘prophet’ who has railed against Kabila’s decision to make peace with Tutsi rebels in eastern Congo, saying the president was under the influence of Rwanda.
Witnesses said the fighting in the regional capital Lubumbashi quickly subsided. Security forces found arms and ammunition in the church, sources told Reuters.
“We have total control of the situation,” said government spokesman Lambert Mende, saying there were no civilian or troop casualties.
Government officials said the Kinshasa assault was carried out by untrained youths in civilian clothes with aged military equipment and appeared to be more a political statement than an attempt to seize power in the riverside city of more than nine million people.
Some analysts in Kinshasa said the attacks could be linked to Kabila’s recent decision to replace national police chief John Numbi, a powerful political figure from Katanga, with Charles Bisengimana, an ethnic Tutsi.
Democratic Republic of Congo is struggling to emerge from decades of violence and instability, particularly in its east, in which millions of people have died, mostly from hunger and disease. A 21,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission (Monusco) is stationed in the country.
Gunmen briefly seized the headquarters of state radio and television in Kinshasa just before 8am, taking several journalists hostage. Witnesses also reported shooting at the Tshatshi military camp, close to the Defence Ministry, and at the international airport.
A local Monusco staff member was wounded during shooting at the airport but was in a stable condition, a UN spokesman said. Some flights were diverted to Brazzaville, the capital of Congo Republic, on the other side of the Congo river.
“Gedeon Mukungubila has come to free you from the slavery of the Rwandan,” shouted one youth in the Lingala language on television, while two panicked presenters stared at the camera.
A voice off-camera could be heard to say in Lingala: “Kabila, it’s finished for him from today.”
Kabila has ruled the mineral-rich African nation since 2001 following the assassination of his father Laurent.