[ad_1]
Four members of the security forces and a civilian killed in attacks by separatist militias in the country’s second largest city.
Four members of the security forces and a civilian were killed when separatist rebels attacked two military camps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lubumbashi’s main mining center, the city’s mayor said.
The mayor of Lubumbashi, Ghislain Robert Lubaba Buluma, told AFP news agency on Sunday that six of the rebels had died in the attacks.
Jeff Mbiya Kadima, a member of a civil society platform that works with the government, told AFP that the rebels targeted the Kimbembe and Kibati camps on Sunday morning.
Fortune Mbaya, a civil society leader, said the attackers identified themselves as members of the separatist Bakata-Katanga militia.
Residents reported gunfire in several districts following the assaults.
Alain Uayakani of Al Jazeera, who reported from the capital Kinshasa, said government forces could take several days to completely eliminate rebels from the area.
“The army said it had succeeded in pushing back the militiamen from the city. The militias are mixed among the population and the operation to completely rid them of the city and the surrounding area can take days, ”Uayakani said.
Lubumbashi is the second largest city in the country and the capital of the Southeastern Katanga region.
Former president Joseph Kabila, originally from the region, returned there in December after a power struggle between his supporters and his successor Felix Tshisekedi.
Incursions by the Bataka-Katanga, fighting for the secession of the region from the DRC, occur frequently in Lubumbashi. Two policemen and a soldier were killed in the latest attack on September 26.
[ad_2]
Source link
