AP News, March 22nd, 2007
Heavy gunfire broke out in Congo's capital Thursday near the home of a former warlord who was second in last year's presidential vote, U.N. officials and witnesses said. Government soldiers deployed throughout the city, while residents fled in vehicles and on foot.
U.N. military spokesman Didier Rancher said there were fatalities but he did not give a figure. He said U.N. armored vehicles evacuated students stuck in schools and workers barricaded in office buildings. "Right now our priority is the living and the injured," he said.
A projectile _ possibly a mortar shell _ struck the Spanish Embassy, said a Spanish Foreign Ministry official in Madrid. No one was hurt, but the building was evacuated, the official said.
Men wearing the uniforms of failed candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba's armed guard could be seen shooting, but most of the fighters were hidden and hard to identify, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.
Bemba came in second in the October presidential runoff, and his guard _ numbering in the thousands _ has refused to disband as promised as part of a deal with the government.
Thursday's violence was the first in the capital since Congo installed Joseph Kabila as president on Dec. 6, the nation's first freely elected president since 1960.
Gunfire and heavy explosions started around Bemba's home around noon, said Rancher. He said it was unclear what sparked the violence, but confirmed that members of Bemba's guard were fighting soldiers from Congo's army.
"It didn't appear planned," Rancher said. "It started all of the sudden."
Mortar shells landed as far as two miles away in Brazzaville, the capital of Republic of Congo that sits across the Congo River from Kinshasa. A government spokesman in Brazzaville said the mayor's office was hit. State-run television showed footage of two wounded people.
Bemba made an appeal on a U.N.-backed radio station for the members of his guard to return to their barracks. It was not immediately clear if his fighters were complying with the order.
A spokesman for Kabila's government, Toussaint Tshilombo, said the army was regaining control of the city, even though shots could still be heard late into the evening.
Bemba initially rejected the election results and his militia took to the streets, clashing with Kabila's security forces. At least two dozen civilians were killed. Bemba gave up his challenge after the Supreme Court rejected his claims, and was recently elected to the Senate.
The former warlord's personal guard had been expected to register at an army base last week to begin their integration into the Congolese security force. But his militia ignored the deadline.
A spokesman said at the time that Bemba was still in danger and needed protection.
The U.N. has 18,000 peacekeepers in the restive Central African country and regularly patrols the area around Bemba's house, also the scene of earlier clashes.
U.N. officials were contact both camps by telephone and trying to broker a deal.
Congo's defense minister declined to comment on the fighting. Bemba's representatives could not be immediately reached.
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Associated Press writer Louis Okamba contributed to this report from Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.
