At least one dead, 20 escape in latest Congo jail break

Record ID: 904459

  • Title: At least one dead, 20 escape in latest Congo jail break
  • Date: 28th July 2017
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF WOMAN WITH WOUNDED ARM
  • Embargoed: 11th August 2017 20:29
  • Keywords: Prison break security Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila
  • Location: BUKAVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
  • City: BUKAVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
  • Country: Congo, Democratic Republic of
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Civil Unrest
  • Reuters ID: LVA0026RMVRRB
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: **VIDEO AS INCOMING**
    At least one person was killed and about 20 inmates escaped in a prison break in Bukavu in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday (July 28).
    It was at least the sixth such incident in Congo since May.
    The inmates escaped after an unidentified person threw a grenade inside the prison, Mayor Philemon Yogolelo told Reuters.
    A visitor to the prison was killed and four others wounded when prison guards opened fire to try to stop the mass escape. A police official, however, put the number of wounded at two.
    Deteriorating security, including an insurrection in central Congo that has killed more than 3,000 people since August, has led some of President Joseph Kabila's allies to call on him to decree a state of emergency.
    Kabila has ruled Congo, a vast tinderbox of rivalries over mineral rights and ethnicity, since 2001.
    His refusal to quit power has raised fears the country could relapse into the civil wars of the turn of the century that killed millions.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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