2 Killed in Anti-Kabila Protests in Congo

A Congolese opposition party supporter displays a red card against President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa, Congo in 2016. (Reuters)
A Congolese opposition party supporter displays a red card against President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa, Congo in 2016. (Reuters)
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2 Killed in Anti-Kabila Protests in Congo

A Congolese opposition party supporter displays a red card against President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa, Congo in 2016. (Reuters)
A Congolese opposition party supporter displays a red card against President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa, Congo in 2016. (Reuters)

Two demonstrators were killed on Sunday by security forces during rallies against Congolese President Joseph Kabila's refusal to step down from office, Human Rights Watch said.

The two men were killed outside St. Alphonse church in Kinshasa's Matete district, the advocacy group's Central Africa director, Ida Sawyer, told Reuters.

Police and soldiers had set up earlier Sunday checkpoints across the capital and fired teargas at opposition supporters who had gathered outside churches to protest against Kabila.

Authorities ordered internet and SMS services to be cut following calls by Catholic activists for protest marches after Sunday mass. The activists are demanding that Kabila commit to not changing the constitution to stand for a third term and to release political prisoners.

The police have banned demonstrations and said that all gatherings of more than five people will be dispersed. Across Kinshasa, police and soldiers searched vehicles and checked passengers’ identifications.

Some 40 percent of Congo’s population is Roman Catholic and the Church enjoys rare credibility with the public, even though its leadership has not formally backed the protests.

At the Notre Dame du Congo cathedral in Kinshasa’s Lingwala district, where opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi was attending mass, dozens of police and soldiers blocked the path of more than 100 opposition supporters as they prepared to try to march.

Tshisekedi, however, who had backed the activists’ call to march, left the church in a vehicle, spurring angry shouts from the crowd, which said he was abandoning them.

At the Paroisse Saint Michel in Bandalungwa district, security forces fired teargas into the church, creating panic, opposition leader Vital Kamerhe, who was present at the mass, told Reuters.

“All of the neighboring community came out (to protest) and I think that this shows the will of the people and marks the beginning of the end of the dictatorship,” Kamerhe said.

At another church in the working class district of Barumbu, a few dozen police officers used teargas and stun grenades against some 300 churchgoers, who waved bibles and sang religious songs as they tried to march, a Reuters witness said.

A police spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

Opposition appeals for protests this year have been easily suppressed by security forces but the Catholic activists’ appeal has managed to unite nearly all of Congo’s fractious opposition.

Kabila has been in power since 2001 when he succeeded his assassinated father Laurent Kabila.

He refused to step down at the end of his second and final term in December 2016.

That refusal led to protests and a bloody crackdown. Demonstrations have been banned or else widely repressed since September 2016 but several have nonetheless gone ahead since with many ending in bloodshed.

Elections were due to take place by the end of this year under a church-mediated deal aimed at avoiding more violence in a vast, mineral-rich country which has never had a peaceful transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.

After multiple postponements -- officially due to violence in the Kasai region -- the delayed poll is now scheduled for December 23 next year.

Clinging on to power, Kabila is banned by the constitution from running for a third term, but the deal allows him to stay on until the next poll is held.



Israel Threatens Iran's Khamenei after Missiles Damage Hospital and Wound Over 200

(FILES) A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s office on March 21, 2025, shows him addressing the crowd during his annual Nowruz speech, in Tehran.(Photo by KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
(FILES) A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s office on March 21, 2025, shows him addressing the crowd during his annual Nowruz speech, in Tehran.(Photo by KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
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Israel Threatens Iran's Khamenei after Missiles Damage Hospital and Wound Over 200

(FILES) A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s office on March 21, 2025, shows him addressing the crowd during his annual Nowruz speech, in Tehran.(Photo by KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
(FILES) A handout picture provided by the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s office on March 21, 2025, shows him addressing the crowd during his annual Nowruz speech, in Tehran.(Photo by KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)

Israel's defense minister overtly threatened Iran's supreme leader on Thursday after the latest missile barrage from Iran damaged a major hospital and hit a high-rise and several other residential buildings near Tel Aviv.

At least 240 people were wounded in the attacks, according to Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service. Black smoke rose from the Soroka Medical Center in the southern city of Beersheba as emergency teams evacuated patients.

In the aftermath of the strikes, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz blamed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and said the military "has been instructed and knows that in order to achieve all of its goals, this man absolutely should not continue to exist.”

While it remained unclear whether US President Donald Trump would task American forces to join Israel's sweeping campaign against Iran's military and nuclear program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he trusted that Trump would “do what's best for America.”

“I can tell you that they’re already helping a lot,” Netanyahu said from the rubble and shattered glass around the Soroka Medical Center.

US officials said this week that Trump had vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei. Trump later said there were no plans to kill him “at least not for now.”

The conflict began last Friday with a surprise wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting nuclear and military sites, senior officers and nuclear scientists.