Armed villagers killed at least 47 policemen trying to intervene in a feud over fishing rights in northern Congo, Reuters quoted United Nation-sponsored radio as reporting today, but the government said the death toll was much lower. An unknown number of civilians also died in the violence which erupted near the village of Dongo in Equateur province early on Thursday and continued on Friday, Radio Okapi said, citing local officials. Congo"s Information Minister Lambert Mende said the death toll had been exaggerated and the incident had been sparked by a local government official, who was recently removed from his post for inciting community tensions. "The central government had already suspended him. He was the one who organised the group, which had carried out the assaults against the other community," Mende told Reuters. "They attacked the local police station yesterday, killing one policeman and four civilians. Today, they killed six more policemen," he said. The violence is not linked to simmering fighting in Congo"s eastern borderlands, where the army, backed by thousands of U.N. peacekeepers, is attempting to stamp out local, Rwandan and Ugandan rebels who roam the mineral-rich regions. Bienvenu Longe, a local administrator near Dongo, said the fighting started when police, sent to the area to quell months of clashes, attempted to arrest a local witch doctor linked to the feud.
