Eight killed, church altar boys detained, as DR Congo forces launch deadly crackdown on anti-president protests
Catholic activists had called for protests after Sunday worship, one year after President Joseph Kabila committed to holding an election to choose his successor by the end of 2017 – an election that has now been delayed until December 2018
Eight people were killed and dozens arrested as security forces in DR Congo cracked down on Catholic worshippers who gathered at churches across the country to demand President Joseph Kabila leave power, a UN source said.
Despite appeals notably from the United Nations to respect people’s right to protest, troops fired tear gas into churches and bullets in the air to break up gatherings at Catholic masses Sunday, in one case arresting 12 altar boys leading a protest in Kinshasa.
Internet links were also down as church and opposition groups defied a ban by authorities to push ahead with the demonstrations.
“Eight deaths – seven in Kinshasa and one in Kananga,” in central Democratic Republic of Congo, the source said, adding there had been “82 arrests, including priests, in the capital and ”41 in the rest of the country”.
In his end-of-year speech, Kabila insisted that the recent publication of an electoral timetable for the December 2018 vote “is driving us irreversibly toward organising elections”.