Main DR Congo-Zambia border crossing closed amid tensions
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema and DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi. The main DR Congo-Zambia border crossing has been closed amid tensions. PHOTOS | AFP
The main highway linking DR Congo and Zambia was closed Wednesday after days of tensions during which villagers burned a lorry driver to death after a fatal road accident, officials said.Â
Several Congolese people interviewed said they had been stopped at Kasumbalesa -- an important border post through which trucks carrying copper and cobalt pass from Haut-Katanga province in the central African country's southeast.Â
"Truckers on the Zambian side refused to let us cross," said Jean-Luc Kayumba, a salesman from Kasumbalesa. "They threw stones at us".
Zambian police officers fired tear gas at a crowd assembled on the border in the morning, he added, before closing the crossing.Â
Tensions have been rife since September 29, according to local civil-society leader Pierre Mwebu, who explained that one person had been killed in a road accident involving a Zambian driver, about 300 kilometres (186 miles) from the crossing.
Speaking to AFP via telephone from Haut-Katanga's capital Lubumbashi, Mwebu added that locals had burned the Zambian driver alive in response.Â
A Zambian diplomat who requested anonymity said the border closure was "provisional" and that the Congolese and Zambian governments were discussing the issue.Â
The Democratic Republic of Congo is an impoverished country whose economy relies on its vast mineral resources, many of which are concentrated in the southeast.
