Ten citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo were killed on Sunday in Khartoum when Sudan’s “regular army” bombarded a university campus, the Congolese government announced on Monday.
In a statement read out to the press by the government spokesman at a weekly briefin in Kinshasa, Congolese Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula said he had learned “with deep consternation” of the death of the ten nationals, “killed by bombardments carried out at 1.00 pm on Sunday on the campus of the International University of Africa in Khartoum.”
The information in the government’s possession “indicates that these fatal shots, fired by the regular army on an area occupied by unarmed civilian populations, including nationals of foreign countries, seriously wounded other compatriots,” the statement added.
“Following this tragedy,” it continued, the Minister of Foreign Affairs received the chargé d’affaires of the Sudanese embassy in Kinshasa on Monday, and “conveyed the Congolese government’s message of sadness and protest.”
“We asked him for explanations to be given to us and for all arrangements to be made by the Sudanese government (….) for the bodies to be returned” with a view to their repatriation, the minister told the press.
In seven weeks, the war between the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitary forces of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo has left more than 1,800 people dead and displaced over 1.5 million, many of whom have fled to neighbouring countries.
