104 killed, 75,000 displaced in Ankoro, Katanga Province

An estimated 104 civilians were killed and 75,000 displaced during recent fighting between government troops and Mayi-Mayi militias in the town of Ankoro, in northern Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Abbot Francois Mwila Bweno, who is in hiding in the southeastern city of Lubumbashi, said the fighting erupted when government forces began burning and pillaging homes and shops in the area. A local human rights NGO, the Commission de Vulgarisation des Droits de l'Homme et de Developpement (CVDHO), reported that this began on 10 November.

Bweno said that the soldiers began their reprisal on Sunday against local Mayi-Mayi fighters who had beat up a soldier.

"It has been a chain of settling of accounts with the other, as the Mayi-Mayi sought revenge for one of their own who had been beat up on Saturday by soldiers [of the FAC] who tried to take away his weapon," said Mwila.

Abbot Leon Simbi of the Saint Antoine parish in Ankoro said the human toll has been particularly brutal.

"Some were burned, and the soldiers threw some bodies in the river to try and hide the evidence," Simbi said from a hideout in Lubumbashi.

The Lubumbashi-based CVDHO reported at least 1,200 homes were burned on 15 November, with 29 corpses left in the rubble, while others were thrown in the Congo River. It added that a warehouse storing food for internally displaced persons was also looted and destroyed.

The United Nations Mission in the DRC confirmed that there were skirmishes in Ankoro, but did not give any details. The government also refused to comment. The priests and journalists who have published information on the events have complained that they have been pursued by DRC security service agents, forcing them into hiding.

"The security services have taken another abbot, whose name is also Francois," Simbi said.