Goma -
Congolese troops clashed with supporters of a renegade colonel in
Congo's eastern city of Bukavu on Sunday before he surrendered
and turned himself in to U.N. peacekeepers.
Democratic Republic of Congo army spokesman for South Kivu
region, Dieudonne Kasereka, said by telephone that clashes had
started after police came to disarm Colonel Abbas Kayonga, who
was sacked from his post on Thursday.
However, Kayonga, a former rebel from a group that had been
disarmed and integrated into the Congolese military, gave
himself up at the local base for the U.N. mission to Congo.
"He has just surrendered with 17 people at the base of the
mission," Kasereka said, adding that there had been some deaths
and arrests but he did not yet have the figures.
Kasereka estimated the initial size of Kayonga's force at
about 30. Some had been arrested, some may have been killed and
others had fled, he said.
Security has been deteriorating across Congo since the end
of last year, when President Joseph Kabila refused to step down
despite his mandate expiring.
Surging militia violence in the east, which has for decades
been a tinderbox of ethnic rivalries fuelled by the region's
mineral wealth, and in the formerly peaceful central Kasai
region, have raised fears the country could slip back to the
multi-faceted civil wars of the turn of the century.
Those wars killed hundreds of thousands directly in violence
while millions of others are thought to have died from of hunger
and disease.
The national electoral commission was expected to announce a
date for the election to replace Kabila later on Sunday. Last
month, it said the election cannot take place until April 2019,
raising fears of an escalation in militia violence and civil
disturbances.
U.S. envoy Nikki Haley, after meeting with Kabila last
month, said the vote must happen in 2018 or it will lose
international support.