Unrest broke out between the Hema and Lendu communities in the north-eastern province of Ituri.

A UN-sponsored broadcaster said the assailants were eventually forced back by security forces.

More than 100 people have been killed by violence in the province since mid-December.

The unrest between the Hema cattle herders and Lendu farmers of the Ituri region is one of several conflicts in DR Congo which have produced a huge amount of refugees and internally displaced people over the past two years.

Some 200,000 people are estimated to have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the violence in Ituri alone.

Local army spokesman Jules Ngongo told Reuters news agency that state forces had separated the two sides.

“It was a case of reprisals by the two communities. According to our information, there were cases of people being decapitated,” he said. Some charities put the death toll at 49 or more.

A BBC reporter recently saw burnt and abandoned villages in Ituri, where the Hema and Lendu have been fighting for control of land.

Thousands died in fighting between the two groups between 1997 and 2003, a time when DR Congo was at the centre of what some observers call “Africa’s world war”, as several other countries were involved. Fighting was fuelled by DR Congo’s vast mineral wealth.

The war claimed up to six million lives in total, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition.

Aid agencies are warning about the cost of violence in Ituri.

The United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, says more than 46,000 children are on the run.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian NGO, 4.5m people across the country need humanitarian assistance.

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Source: BBC

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The protests against President Joseph Kabila in the capital Kinshasa were organised by Catholic clergy.

Fifteen people, three of whom are thought to be members of the clergy, have been arrested.

Mr Kabila’s term ended in 2016, but he remains in power and many are angry about the political situation.

Church leaders have led a campaign calling on Mr Kabila to stand down.

Many Christians had planned to take to the capital’s streets after church services on Sunday.

But early on Sunday, security forces surrounded Kinshasa’s main churches and used teargas and gunfire to try to halt the protests.

One man was killed by a live bullet from security forces, staff at St Joseph’s hospital in the city told the BBC.

Several people are reported to have been wounded as a result of the actions of the security forces.

Mr Kabila became president when his father Laurent was assassinated in 2001.

His final mandate expired at the end of 2016.

However, the government and opposition groups have failed to agree on a date for elections.

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Source: BBC

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The girls they raped between 2013 and 2016 were aged between eight months and 12 years old.

The men’s alleged leader was a local MP called Frederic Batumike. He is one of those who was jailed.

Local campaigners hailed the verdict against the men as a sign that impunity for sexual violence was ending.

“It’s a strong signal to anyone who would contemplate this kind of offence,” lawyer for the victims Charles Cubaka Cicura told Reuters news agency.

The verdict for what was ruled to be a crime against humanity was heard in a packed courtroom in Kavumu, in South Kivu in the east of the country.

A military tribunal ruled that the men from the Djeshi ya Yesu (Army of Jesus) militia should be “sentenced to life in prison for the crime against humanity by rape and murder”.

The men were also convicted of murder, membership in a rebel movement and illegal weapons possession.

A total of 18 had been tried but two were sentenced to just one year in jail, while five were acquitted.

Many of the assaults happened at night. The men were alleged to believe that the blood of virgins would grant them supernatural protection.

Gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, who has developed expertise in the treatment of serious sexual injuries in the DR Congo where rape is used as a weapon of war, reported a wave of incidents to the authorities in 2015.

The people they raped have been allocated $5,000 each in compensation, with $15,000 going to the families of those who the militia murdered, advocacy groups said.

The Democratic Republic of Congo was labelled “the rape capital of the world” by Margot Wallstrom, the former UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

One UN official resigned out of frustration at the UN’s continued failure to halt the atrocities in Kavumu, according to a Guardian report in 2016.

In previous cases of mass rape in the DR Congo, victims have told reporters they feel ashamed by what happened, and are expected to keep it secret to avoid being abandoned by their husbands and families.

Following more than 20 years of conflict, much of eastern DR Congo is under the control of various militia groups.

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Source: BBC

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David Beasley told the BBC that more than three million people were now at risk of starvation.

He warned that hundreds of thousands of children could die in the coming months if aid was not delivered.

Violence flared in August 2016 after the death of a local leader during clashes with security forces.

It has forced 1.5 million million people from their homes, most of them children.

Mr Beasley described the situation in Kasai as a “disaster”.

“Our teams are out in the field, we saw burned huts, burned homes, seriously malnourished children that had been stunted, obviously many children have died already,” the head of the World Food programme (WFP) said.

“We’re talking about several hundred thousand children there that will die in the next few months, if we don’t get first funds and then second food, and then third access in the right locations,” he added.

He said the WFP currently only had 1% of the funding it needed to help people in Kasai and warned that the coming rainy season would soon make already poor roads impassable.

But delivering aid by air would see costs escalate, he said.

“If we wait another few more weeks before we receive funds, to pre-position food, I can’t imagine how horrible the situation is going to be,” he said.

“We need help, and we need it right now,” he added.

The conflict began when the government refused to recognise a traditional chief who went by the title Kamuina Nsapu.

He set up a militia but was killed in clashes. Since his death a number of Kamuina Nsapu militia factions have emerged, all fighting for different causes, but with authorities their common target.

More and more people have joined the fighting, which has spread to five provinces. Both security forces and the militias have been accused of gross human rights violations.

More than 3,000 people have been killed and the UN has discovered dozens of mass graves in the area.

Survivors have described seeing their family members killed with machetes or drowned and say the continuing ethnic conflict means they cannot go home.

In March, militias ambushed and killed 40 police officers in Kasai, cutting off all of their heads.

The same month two UN workers, a Swedish and an American, were abducted and killed in the same region, having gone to investigate the abuses.

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Source: BBC

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Captain of the side Asamoah Gyan had to eventually rescue the situation by paying for a direct chartered flight back to Ghana after the emphatic 5-1 win over Congo after it emerged that government had allegedly failed to deliver on its promise.

The alleged arrangement was to see government convey the players to Ghana by mid morning of September 6 after which they could depart for their various bases in Europe.

The story is however not corroborated by deputy sports Minister Pius Hadzide who insists that all necessary arrangements had been sorted out only for the players to take matters into their own hands for reasons unknown.

“Arrangements were made to convey them back to Accra.

“Our arrangement was that by this morning Air Ivoire will depart from Brazaville and arrive in Ghana by 10:30 in the morning.

“We are told that some of them may have wanted to arrive ahead of schedule.

“I don’t know but for some of them they had just won a match massively and they were excited.

“I do not know but I am told that one player or a couple of them got together to charter a flight.
“That should not be interpreted to mean that the Ministry did not do its job.

“We had a plan and were following through strictly with it,” he told Citi Sports in an interview.

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By:Benjamin Nketsia/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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With captain Asamoah Gyan and Andre Ayew ruled out of the game with injury and Jordan Ayew suffering a stomach ache, Appiah has handed starts to Thomas Agyepong, Afriyie Acquah and Richmond Boakye Yiadom.

Joseph Attamah Larweh who endured a testing match for the Black Stars last week makes do with a place on the bench with Harrison Afful returning to right back.

Lumor Agbenyenu starts at left back, replacing Jeffery Schlupp who played 90 minutes in the game.

Richard Ofori retains his place in goal behind the center-back pairing of Jonathan Mensah and Daniel Amartey.

Black Stars XI

Richard Ofori, Harrison Afful, Lumor Agbenyenu, Daniel Amartey, Jonathan Mensah, Afriyie Acquah, Ebenezer Ofori, Richmond Boakye Yiadom, Thomas Agyepong, Thomas Partey, Christian Atsu

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By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The landslide in the village of Tora of Ituri province was triggered on Wednesday by heavy rain in recent weeks, officials said.

Pacifique Keta, deputy governor of Ituri province, told AFP news agency on Thursday that part of a mountain engulfed “a fisherman’s camp after heavy rains caused a landslide”.

According to the governor’s office and hospital officials, five people have been rescued while efforts were under way with hundreds of other villagers missing.

A doctor at the Tshomia Hospital, Herve Isamba, told AFP they were treating four people.

The affected village is located between a mountainous area and Lake Albert.

Congo is in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, with about 7.7 million people on the verge of starvation, according to UN food agencies.

The incident comes after more than 400 people were killed by a massive mudslide in Sierra Leone on Monday.

In May 2010, a mudslide swept over the eastern Congo village of Kibiriga and killed 19 people. Bodies of 27 others were never recovered.

In February 2002, about 50 people were found dead after a wave of mud and rocks hit the eastern town of Uvira, submerging about 150 homes.

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Source: Aljazeera

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According to a Global Witness report, the money is being distributed through corrupt networks linked to President Joseph Kabila.

At least $750m (£580m) has gone missing over the past three years, it says.

The government has not commented but has previously denied allegations of corruption in its mining sector.

DR Congo is Africa’s biggest producer of copper and the world’s largest supplier of cobalt used in batteries for electric cars.

It is also rich in gold, diamonds and coltan, used in mobile phones, but its people remain among the poorest in the world following years of conflict and mismanagement.

“Congo’s mining revenues should be helping to lift its people out of poverty,” says Pete Jones, a Global Witness senior campaigner.

According to the report, much of DR Congo’s mining revenue goes missing after being paid to the state-owned mining company, Gécamines.

The head of Gécamines, a close ally of President Kabila, has denied allegations of corruption and insisted the company is transparent.

Other alleged culprits identified by the report are the country’s tax agencies which are legally allowed to hold back a percentage of the taxes they impose.

This creates avenues for corruption through inflating how much of the fines they can keep for themselves, Global Witness says.

The report says that if the money not reaching the state coffers through corruption, mismanagement and an ineffective tax system was collated, from 2013 to 2015, then the amount rises to $1.3bn.

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Source: BBC

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The authorities say only around 50 prisoners got away when armed men attacked the prison on Wednesday.

The security sources also said dozens of people were killed during the attack on Makala prison.

Ne Muanda Nsemi, leader of the political-religious sect Bundu Dia Kongo, is among those who escaped.

A police spokesperson told a local radio station, Radio Okapi, that the prisoners were dangerous, and called for anyone who saw them to tell the authorities.

The sources say that around half of the prison’s inmates fled during the attack.

Government officials say a police officer and at least five attackers were killed, while several sources say that up to 100 died.

The authorities accuse supporters of Mr Nsemi’s supporters of being behind the attack, although the group has denied this.

Mr Nsemi is a self-styled prophet seeking to revive the ancient Kongo kingdom.

Bundu Dia Kongo is campaigning to restore a monarchy in parts of DR Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola and Gabon.

The group mixes Christian and traditional beliefs and practices.

Mr Nsemi was an MP when he was arrested in Kinshasa after police accused him of inciting violence.

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Source: BBC

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