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Manila Bulletin devider World devider 4 killed in land conflict in northeast DR Congo

4 killed in land conflict in northeast DR Congo

Published May 4, 2023 03:03 pm
KISANGANI, DR Congo - At least four people have been killed this week in a conflict over land in Kisangani, a city in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said on Thursday. Several people had already died on April 10 in fighting between members of the Mbole and Lengola ethnic groups, according to several officials interviewed by AFP.  Tensions appear to have erupted after Lengola people sold land to a company without consulting the Mbole community beforehand. Both communities live side-by-side in a neighbourhood of Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo province, on the Congo River.  Violence appeared to have ebbed by mid-April, but flared this week.  Kisangani Mayor Delly Likunde told AFP that four people had been killed on Tuesday in the city. "It's a conflict over land title between two communities, which is taking a very worrying turn," he said. "The police and army and re-establishing the authority of the state," Likunde added.  Theovel Lotika, a local MP, said that five people had been killed on Tuesday, noting that some people were walking around neighbourhoods carrying "fire arms and bladed weapons". Prince Heritier Isomela, the head of a local civil-society association, also said that five people were killed on Tuesday.  One victim was lynched and burned, he said, while another was decapitated.  AFP was unable to independently confirm either the death toll or the details of the latest violence. Disputes over land can frequently turn deadly in the DRC, an impoverished central African country of about 100 million people. In the west of the country, a conflict between Teke and Yaka people, triggered by a dispute over customary tithes, has killed 300 people since last year, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).  Violence also mars much of eastern DRC, where roving militias have wreaked havoc for three decades -- a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s. 





                

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