Lubumbashi – Teams from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia were set to meet on Friday in a bid to settle a decades-long border dispute left over from the colonial era, Congolese authorities said.
Experts from both sides will seek high-tech solutions using satellite equipment, including GPS, to reconstruct the boundaries with input from local traditional chiefs, Congolese authorities said on Thursday.
While the disputed stretch of border between lakes Mweru and Tanganyika is only about 205km, it continues to strain relations.
“The DR Congo is tired of this conflict,” Dieudonne Kamona Yumba, Minister of the Interior of the Congolese province of Tanganyika, said.
“The Zambian army has been occupying several villages in our territory for several months now, and several milestones have been destroyed and displaced,” Kamona said.
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As recently as March last year, fighting broke out, killing one person on each side, when Zambian troops occupied two villages in Tanganyika province.
Kamona has been leading a Congolese delegation to the north shore of Lake Mweru since Wednesday.
“I am accompanied by traditional chiefs, military officials from Kinshasa and immigration services,” he said, speaking by phone from Lubumbashi.
They were joined on Thursday by a Zambian delegation to prepare for the meeting.
“If the experts conclude that the villages we are occupying belong to the DRC, I think the Zambian army will withdraw,” said a Zambian diplomat in Lubumbashi.
The border drawn at the end of the 19th century by former colonial powers Belgium for the DRC and Britain for Zambia proved to be unclear and disputed.
A commission of experts was set up in 1982, leading to a treaty between the two countries seven years later.
But the confusion remains and incidents have continued to sporadically pit the two armies against each other.
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Picture: Getty Images
Source: AFP
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