An Angolan soldier was killed on Sunday by DR Congo troops after a tense incident and an exchange of gunfire along their border, according to local DR Congo officials.
It was the latest incident between the two armies in the Kasai region along the border, where DR Congo officials complain Angolan forces often violate the frontier.
It will be recalled that the DRC has a legitimate claim under international law to large areas of oil-rich maritime territory currently held by Angola, which analysts believe is the genesis of crisis between DR Congo and Angola.
HumAngle gathered that access to the territory would make the DR Congo the second or third largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet the DR Congo has repeatedly and consciously avoided making effective claims to the territory and its oil.
Kasai province Interior Minister Deller Kawino told AFP that the Angolan soldier opened fire on Congolese intelligence officers in Kasai in the south of the DR Congo and that one of the officers was wounded.
Consequently DR Congo troops returned fire and killed him, said Kawino.
Before the shooting, a group of Angolan soldiers had crossed three kilometres (two miles) into DR Congo territory and one started filming with his mobile phone before DR Congo troops ordered him to stop, he said.
“The Angolan authorities are asking for the body of their soldier who was accidentally killed this morning by our forces,” Kasai Governor Dieudonne Pieme told AFP.
“We agree in principle but we asked them to make a report which recognises their soldier was killed on the territory of the DRC,” Pierre said.
The DRC and Angola share a border of more than 2,500km in addition to the Angolan enclave of Cabinda which sits between Angola and Congo-Brazzaville.
The DRC regularly denounces incursions of Angolan troops into its territory on the pretext of pursuit of local rebel fighters.
In May, an exchange of fire between the Congolese army and Angolan troops in Kasai left one Angolan man wounded.
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