Lubumbashi – Police fired live rounds on political activists demonstrating on Tuesday in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s second city Lubumbashi, injuring four people, an AFP correspondent said.
The clashes erupted in the city’s Kenya area when police tried to disperse a protest by the National Union of Congolese Federalists (UNAFEC), the correspondent said.
Police said they had arrested 33 people.
ALSO READ | DRC jails 12 after protests over emergency measures
Dozens of party activists took to the streets, some of them with their faces masked, to protest the interior ministry’s decision confirming a controversial designation given to the party’s new members.
An AFP correspondent saw four people with bullet injuries at a hospital in Kenya.
Police spokesperson Major Lwamba Esperanto said “33 presumed looters” had been arrested, adding that they were “trying to pillage shops and kiosks”.
UNAFEC vice president Juvenal Kitungwa Lugoma rejected this version and claimed that two people had died in the police firing and six others were wounded.
AFP could not independently verify this claim.
UNAFEC has been riven by infighting since its founder Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza died last year.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Source: AFP
Picture: Getty Images
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
