AT least 10 people were killed today in DR Congo’s eastern city of Goma after soldiers attempted to stop a religious group’s planned anti-United Nations protest, said organisers and hospital officials.

Moleka Maregane, a member of the Natural Judaic and Messianic Faith towards the Nations group that organised the march, said Congo soldiers killed six people at a radio station and place of worship early in the morning, before the protest could take place.

Goma mayor Colonel Faustin Napenda Kapend told AFP a policeman was lynched by the religious group.

Security forces torched the group’s temple, he said.

Hospital officials said they had admitted 33 wounded people, three of whom died of their injuries.

Congo’s army spokesman in North Kivu province Guillaume Ndjike said about 20 people had been arrested.

“These people are playing the enemy’s game and are manipulated and drugged,” he said in a statement.

The UN peacekeeping force in DR Congo, known as Monusco, is one of the largest and costliest in the world, with an annual budget of around US$1 billion (RM4.6 billion).

It has been present in the country since 1999, but the UN comes in for sharp criticism in the central African nation, where many people perceive the peacekeepers as failing to prevent militia violence that has ravaged the east for three decades.

The force has a current strength of about 16,000 uniformed personnel, mainly deployed in Congo’s mineral-rich east. – AFP, August 30, 2023.