Bloodshed returns to DRC as Bemba loyalists battle government forces

CONGO: Bloodshed has returned to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, less than six months after elections…

CONGO:Bloodshed has returned to Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, less than six months after elections that were supposed to draw a line under years of bitter civil war.

Militiamen loyal to defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba battled government forces yesterday in a grim reminder of how life used to be.

Meanwhile, the government has issued an arrest warrant for Mr Bemba, accusing him of treason, as mortars flew across the city for the second day running.

Witnesses described bodies lying in the streets as columns of smoke spiralled into the air.

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A 17,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force said loyalists were gaining ground on Mr Bemba's fighters while their leader sought safety in the South African embassy.

"Bemba's fighters are running out of ammunition and their morale is low," said UN military spokesman Lieut Col Didier Rancher. "We have a lot of dead bodies, mostly military, but also civilians, but no precise numbers."

He added that Mr Bemba's men were starting to surrender at UN bases in the city while residents reported seeing militiamen fleeing their positions, leaving behind weapons and uniforms.

Staff at Kinshasa's general hospital reported at least 12 fatalities and a further 27 people injured.

The former Belgian colony has been wracked by years of civil war which sucked in neighbouring countries and threatened to destabilise central Africa.

Almost four million people died, mainly through hunger and disease, between 1998 and 2003 in a conflict linked to wars in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.

A peace deal culminated in elections last year won by incumbent president Joseph Kabila. They marked the first free ballot in 40 years and brought hope that a country rich in mineral wealth would finally find stability.

Mr Bemba, who like Mr Kabila had fought his way into contention for the presidency, lost heavily but won the overwhelming support of voters in the capital, reflecting ethnic divisions in the country.

Fighting erupted on Thursday, after the government ordered Mr Bemba to demobilise his personal militia of about 200 men.

Members of the presidential guard were deployed in force in the streets since dawn yesterday, with several armoured cars and tanks. Frequent fire from small arms, heavy machineguns and rocket propelled grenades rang out in the elite business neighbourhood around the Supreme Court, close to one of Mr Bemba's residences on the banks of the River Congo.

His soldiers chanted a battle cry in the local Lingala language: "Today we will not sleep."

Government officials accused Mr Bemba, who was interim vice-president during the run-up to last year's elections, of treason.

"The judicial authorities . . . have issued an arrest warrant for high treason against Jean-Pierre Bemba," said government spokesman Toussaint Tshilombo Send. "Bemba committed treason in using the armed forces for his own ends."

Mr Bemba appealed for an end to the fighting. "The city needs calm and the people need calm," he told Radio France International. "I hope the other side has also understood the need to stop the fighting."