Deadly crackdown on anti-president protests in DR Congo

KINSHASA: Eight people were killed on Sunday and dozens arrested as security forces in DR Congo cracked down on Catholic worshippers who gathered at churches across the country to demand President Joseph Kabila leave power, a UN source said.

Despite appeals notably from the United Nations to respect people´s right to protest, troops fired tear gas into churches and bullets in the air to break up gatherings at Catholic masses, in one case arresting 12 altar boys leading a protest in Kinshasa.

Internet links were also down as church and opposition groups defied a ban by authorities to push ahead with the demonstrations. "Eight deaths -- seven in Kinshasa and one in Kananga," in central Democratic Republic of Congo, the source told AFP, adding there had been 82 arrests, including priests, in the capital and "41 in the rest of the country."

At least four dead were civilians in the vast, mineral-rich central African country, wracked by tension over delayed elections. A government statement said one policeman had also been killed.

"Two young people were killed in the parish of Saint-Alphonse de Matete," in the east of the country, while another died in the Masina area, police spokesman Colonel Pierrot-Rombaut Mwanamputu said in a televised statement.

An AFP reporter at a demonstration in the central city of Kananga saw a man shot in the chest by soldiers who opened fire on worshippers gathered for what church leaders said would be a peaceful protest.

In Kinshasa, AFP counted at least 15 people hurt and two more in the country´s second-biggest city, Lubumbashi. The protesters were seeking a promise from Kabila that he will not seek to further extend his time in power in the mostly Catholic former Belgian colony.

Kabila has been in power since 2001. Elections to replace him have been delayed and are currently set for December 2018. The United Nations says dozens of people have been killed during anti-government protests this year.

Impatience boiled over on Sunday, with all the country´s main opposition and civil society groups joining in the call for peaceful protests. One army officer threatened a team of AFP reporters covering the crackdown at St Michael´s church in Kinshasa.

"If you don´t clear out of here, I´ll order that you be shot at," he said. "Press, or not, no one is allowed inside. What´s more, you have a white man with you -- that´s a race that causes us problems."

A journalist for French radio station RFI was briefly detained, AFP reporters saw. A churchgoer who asked not to be named described to AFP how officers dispersed worshippers from one mass in Kinshasa. "While we were praying, the soldiers and the police entered the church compound and fired tear gas in the church," he said.

One parishioner who identified herself as Chantal said: "People fell, first-aiders are resuscitating old ladies who have fallen" -- but added the priest carried on saying mass. At the Notre Dame cathedral in the northern Lingwala district of Kinshasa, security forces deployed tear gas as opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi arrived, AFP reporters said.