Bodies scattered in Kinshasa after fighting

24/03/2007 17:24

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Bodies and shell casings lay scattered in the streets of Congo’s capital Kinshasa on Saturday after two days of heavy fighting between the army and troops loyal to former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba.

No casualty figures were available but dozens of soldiers and civilians are believed to have died in the clashes which began on Thursday after Bemba’s forces defied an order to disarm. Looting by soldiers from both sides added to the chaos.

Government forces have overpowered all but a handful of the 500-strong force Bemba had retained in the city after his defeat by President Joseph Kabila in last year’s election, intended to end years of warfare.

"There are some Bemba forces left around N’Dolo airport but they are almost out of ammunition," U.N. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Didier Rancher said.

The disused airport was captured by Bemba’s fighters in the fighting. It was unclear on Saturday who controlled it.

The government has issued a warrant for Bemba’s arrest for high treason and the former rebel leader, elected as a senator after losing the presidential poll, is holed up at the embassy of South Africa which helped broker Congo’s peace process.

Diplomats said he would stay pending orders from Pretoria.

Bullets and shell casings .....continued below

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from assault rifles, heavy machine guns and mortars lay in the streets. A live anti-tank shell lay discarded beside the main boulevard of the riverside city where Bemba enjoys broad popular support.

The 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force evacuated more than 1,000 civilians to the relative safety of its camps during the fighting and they had begun to return home, Rancher said.

Also sheltering at U.N. headquarters were 107 of Bemba’s fighters who had turned themselves in to the United Nations. ore took refuge across the mighty Congo river in Congo Republic’s capital Brazzaville after escaping in fishing boats.

SCARS

Occasional bursts of gunfire could be heard as residents and shopkeepers assessed the damage from mortar battles and looting.

An amateur video shot from a tall building in Kinshasa and seen by Reuters showed government soldiers systematically moving from shop to shop, testing security doors and taking goods from behind broken doors and shutters during the violence.

In one shop blood was smeared on a stripped mannequin. Outside large pools of blood dried along with the blood-soaked uniform of a Bemba fighter.

"There were three presidential guards in black uniform at the entrance to the shop and inside. I wanted to come in, but they chased me away ," said Massoud Fawaz, a trader who said he had lost $25,000 worth of mobile phones.

"At my other shop, it was Bemba’s soldiers."

Bemba’s offices, where his fighters had been based, had its windows smashed and holes blown in its smoke-blackened walls.

A building housing the Spanish embassy was largely destroyed and there was little but twisted metal left of two cars parked outside which had apparently been hit by anti-tank rounds.

(Additional reporting by Christian Tsoumou in Brazzaville)

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