At least 15 people were killed and about 50 injured during a second day of violent protests against the United Nations in the eastern cities of Goma and Butembo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said.
Protesters and UN staff were among the dead as UN sites were attacked by mobs.
A Reuters reporter reported seeing UN peacekeepers shoot dead two protesters as people threw stones and vandalized and set fire to UN buildings in Goma.
The demonstrations began on Monday, when hundreds of people attacked and looted a UN warehouse in the city, a regional hub for international aid groups, demanding the mission leave the country. They opened fire again on Tuesday and spread to Butembo, about 124 miles (200 km) north of Goma.
The protests were called by a faction of the ruling party’s youth wing that accuses the UN mission, known as Monusco, of failing to protect civilians against militia violence.
“Tourists are throwing stones and petrol bombs, breaking into bases, looting and vandalizing, and setting fire to facilities,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.
Some raided the homes of UN workers who were evacuated from Goma in a convoy of military-escorted vehicles, a journalist said.
A UN peacekeeper and two policemen were killed when their base in Butembo was attacked, the UN spokesman said. Butembo police chief Paul Ngoma said seven civilians were also killed when peacekeepers retaliated.
“The situation is very volatile and reinforcements are being mobilized,” Haq said, adding that UN forces had been given maximum restraint and were only firing warning shots.
Government spokesman Patrick Muyaya had earlier said at least five people were killed and about 50 injured in Goma. Reuters reporter in Goma said peacekeepers fired tear gas and live bullets into the crowd, killing two and wounding at least two others.
The protesters were initially peaceful, but turned violent when some picked up tear gas grenades from the ground and threw them back into the Monusco warehouse.
Ngoma said protesters attacked the Monusco base there with stones and gunfire. “This is how three MONUSCO peacekeepers died. In terms of population, the provisional report shows seven dead as Monusco also reacted with weapons,” he said.
India’s foreign minister said two of the peacekeepers who died were Indians. Ngoma said the third was Moroccan.
Militiamen recruited from the bush and carrying weapons were among the protesters, he said, adding that the number of injured was unknown.
Monusco, the UN stabilization mission in the DRC, has been gradually withdrawing from the country for years.
Resurgent clashes between local troops and the M23 rebel group in eastern DRC have displaced thousands and attacks by Islamic State-linked militants have also continued despite a year-long state of emergency and joint operations against them by the DRC and Ugandan armies.
Monusco took over from a previous peacekeeping operation in 2010. As of November 2021, it had more than 12,000 soldiers and 1,600 police deployed in the DRC.