KINSHASA—Heavy gun and mortar fire shook Congo's capital Kinshasa at first light on Friday in a second day of bloodshed between government troops and forces of a former rebel leader who lost last year's presidential polls.
Democratic Republic of Congo's state prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for high treason for former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, accusing him of killings and rape.
"This is a rebellion ... He has committed high treason," Antoine Ghonda, roving ambassador attached to Kabila's presidency, told Reuters.
The battles, the first in the city since landmark elections last year won by President Joseph Kabila, started on Thursday when Bemba's forces defied a government order to disarm.
The 17,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force in Congo said loyalists were gaining ground on Bemba's fighters, some of whom fought in his Ugandan-backed rebel movement during the huge country's devastating 1998-2003 war. Nearly 4 million people died in the conflict, mainly through hunger and disease.
"The FARDC (army) has taken the lead in the last hour. Bemba's fighters are running out of ammunition and their morale is low," U.N. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Didier Rancher said.
He told Belgian radio some of Bemba's men were starting to surrender at U.N. bases in the city.
"We have a lot of dead bodies, mostly military, but also civilians but no precise numbers," he said.
Earlier a witness in a high-rise building on the city's main boulevard said he could see large numbers of what appeared to be government troops moving towards the city centre.
Nigeria's ambassador told a Nigerian newspaper by phone that his bedroom had been hit during the unrest, he had been injured in the right leg, hand and head and U.N. peacekeepers had to wait for fighting to subside before they could rescue him.
Appeal for Calm
Bemba, who South Africa's foreign ministry said had taken refuge in its embassy, repeated an appeal for an end to the fighting in which the Congolese army has used tanks and mortars to try to push their way towards one of his residences.
"The city needs calm and the people need calm," Bemba told Radio France International. "I hope the other side has also understood the need to stop the fighting."
Regional power South Africa has taken a key role in brokering Congo's peace process.
The U.N. force, known by its French acronym MONUC, has been using 25 armoured personnel carriers to pluck some 500 civilians from violence-hit parts of the city.
South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said U.N. troops had taken another former presidential candidate, Azarias Ruberwa of the RCD, to another, unspecified, diplomatic mission.
A column of smoke rose from the area of an oil refinery early on Friday, a resident said. One U.N. source said a downtown hotel popular with foreigners had been looted.
A Reuters witness saw another plume of smoke coming from the vicinity of Bemba's residence in the city's plush Gombe district, which has seen the worst of the fighting.
"We have seen some civilians, about 10, with bullet wounds. We were told there were a lot more wounded, but they couldn't leave their houses because of the security situation. There have been deaths," a hospital doctor told Reuters.
Dozens were killed last year in fighting between Bemba's forces and Kabila's presidential guard before an October run-off vote between the two men. Kabila won and has ordered Bemba to slash his security detail to just 12 police officers, but Bemba insists he has a right to "an appropriate personal guard."
Feeds