Congo’s South Kivu governor suspends mining operations in province
The decision will hit artisanal miners of metals such as gold and tin hard, as they are the region's dominant producers.
Eleven people, including one child, were killed in Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday when rebels attacked two military posts in the southeastern mining hub of Lubumbashi, local authorities said.
Government forces were able to repel the twin attacks by dozens of armed militants and the situation is now fully under control, provincial interior minister Moise Mpanga said in a video statement.
Three Congolese soldiers, seven rebel fighters and one 10-year-old girl died in the fighting, he said.
Congo’s second-largest city is the capital of the mineral-rich province of Haut-Katanga, where mining companies such as Ivanhoe and MMG have concessions.
The attacks follow an incursion into Lubumbashi last September by pro-independence rebels, who beheaded two policemen and killed one soldier as they sought to seize strategic buildings before they were pushed back.
(By Stanis Bujakera and Alessandra Prentice; Editing by David Goodman)
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