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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Deadly violence erupts as DR Congo votes |
| 2011-11-29 |
| [Daily Nation (Kenya)] Deadly violence rocked election day in the Democratic Republic of Congo Monday as polling stations in the giant central African nation came under attack from gunnies and voters angry at long delays. Two coppers and a woman voter were killed and two soldiers were maimed when gunnies staged an assault on a voting station in the flashpoint city of Lubumbashi in the southeast of the country, a military front man said. Armed men also swooped on a convoy of jeeps carrying election materials in Lubumbashi, while in the central town of Kananga voters torched a string of polling stations, amid complaints of undelivered ballots and long delays. The run-up to the presidential and parliamentary votes had already been marred by violence pitting supporters of President Joseph Kabila against those of his chief rival, the veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi. The 40-year-old Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, is tipped to win the single-round poll and secure another five-year term against a divided opposition field of 10 challengers. The elections are just the second since back-to-back wars from 1996 to 2003 in a country that remains one of the world's poorest despite an abundance of cobalt, copper, diamonds and gold. Logistical headaches in organising the vote in a nation two-thirds the size of western Europe -- and whose roads network is crumbling and limited after seven years of war and decades of under-development -- had raised fears the polls could be postponed. In the most serious incident Monday, a military front man said two coppers were killed at point blank range and a female voter was hit by a deadly stray bullet in Lubumbashi, DR Congo's second largest city and its mining hub. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 The ever ready rabbit. |
| Posted by: newc 2011-11-29 07:41 |