At least 17 people were killed Monday when heavy clashes erupted in Kinshasa ahead of a mass opposition rally, a Congolese minister said, calling the toll “provisional”.
Among the dead were “14 civilians involved in looting” and three police officers, one of whom was “burnt alive”, Interior Minister Evariste Boshab told a Press conference in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The opposition is demanding that President Joseph Kabila steps down when his mandate runs out in December.
Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing opposition supporters as they tried to march on parliament ahead of a planned mass demo to demand that Kabila quit power when his mandate runs out in December.
Government spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP that “two policemen were killed” in violence against the ruling party office in Kinshasa’s volatile Limete area.
A Catholic nun said one of the policemen had been “burnt alive”.
“We have now banned the demonstration,” Mende said, accusing the opposition of “targeted looting”.
“We have recorded several deaths,” said Bruno Tshibala, a spokesman for the opposition UDPS, adding that he had seen four bodies piled up in the office of an allied party.
Tshibala said “six million people” had descended on the streets but AFP journalists put the crowd at a few hundred.
Earlier Monday, youths shouting “Kabila get out” threw stones at police on an main avenue in the heart of the city of some 10 million.
Tyres burned and plumes of smoke rose from a burning car and minibus.
The demonstrators waved the blue-and-white flags of veteran Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, 83, whose UDPS movement had called for nationwide protests on Monday.
Kabila, who has ruled mineral-rich DR Congo since 2001, is banned under the constitution from running for a third term — but he has given no sign of intending to give up his job.
Before the clashes, opposition activists burned a giant poster of the president bearing a message appealing for the two sides to reach a solution to the political crisis through “dialogue”.
Youths were blocking traffic on Lumumba Boulevard, a main artery, letting only journalists through.
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