{"id":393788,"date":"2018-01-22T07:20:49","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T07:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=393788"},"modified":"2018-01-22T07:20:49","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T07:20:49","slug":"dr-congo-several-deaths-anti-kabila-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=393788","title":{"rendered":"DR Congo: Several deaths in anti-Kabila protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least six people have been killed in widespread protests in the Democratic Republic of Congo, United Nations sources say.<\/p>\n

Protesters are demanding that President Joseph Kabila – whose expected term of office expired more than a year ago – should step down.<\/p>\n

Police have used tear gas to disperse protesters in Kinshasa, where UN peacekeepers have been deployed.<\/p>\n

Similar demonstrations three weeks ago led to a number of deaths.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the UN mission to the country said about 50 people were injured in Sunday’s clashes and that dozens had been arrested.<\/p>\n

Jean-Baptise Sondji, a former minister, told AFP he had witnessed the death of a 16-year-old girl outside a church in the Kitambo area of the capital.<\/p>\n

“An armoured car passed in front of the church. They began firing live bullets, I protected myself… a girl who was at the left side door of the church was hit,” he said.<\/p>\n

The widespread marches had been called for by the country’s Catholic Church, which appealed for a large but peaceful demonstration.<\/p>\n

The Congolese authorities, however, banned the marches and no formal permission was given. On Saturday evening, internet access in the capital Kinshasa was cut.<\/p>\n

Police warned that they would not tolerate “any attempt to disturb public order.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
Many demonstrators carried rosary beads or other religious icons as they marched.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the ban, protesters gathered after morning Mass on Sunday to march through the streets, accompanied by members of the clergy.<\/p>\n

Local media outlet Radio Okapi reported protests in Kinshasa, Kisangani, and Bukavu. Other cities remain quiet, it reports, though a heavy police presence has been seen in many places.<\/p>\n

Radio Okapi also later said that one of its journalists had been wounded by a bullet in the Lemba district of the capital.<\/p>\n

The UN mission in the country – which has been running continuously since 1999 – said it deployed its troops to the streets to observe and record any violence.<\/p>\n

President Kabila has been in power since 2001, and was supposed to step down after his second and final term came to an end in 2016.<\/p>\n

Under a deal reached more than a year ago, he was due to step down by the end of 2017 – but that has not happened.<\/p>\n

Instead, the election to replace him, originally planned for 2016, has now been delayed until December 2018.<\/p>\n

The country’s powerful Catholic Church has been a voice of opposition to Mr Kabila. The Church also called for the demonstrations in late December which led to at least seven deaths, according to UN peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

Dozens were arrested in the aftermath of those protests.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s demonstrations were also backed by the country’s Muslim community. Before the march, representative Cheikh Ali Mwinyi M’Kuur told AFP: “I ask the authorities to avoid repressing the march.”<\/p>\n

“If they decide to repress, there will be no peace. But if they let the march take place, they will respect the constitution and peace will prevail,” he said.<\/p>\n

DR Congo’s evangelical Christian churches also lent their support to the march organised by their Catholic counterparts.<\/p>\n

–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least six people have been killed in widespread protests in the Democratic Republic of Congo, United Nations sources say. Protesters are demanding that President Joseph Kabila – whose expected term of office expired more than a year ago – should step down. Police have used tear gas to disperse protesters in Kinshasa, where UN […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":393791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,11],"tags":[5904,16335,1733],"class_list":["post-393788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-top-stories","tag-dr-congo","tag-kabila","tag-protests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=393788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/393791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=393788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=393788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}