People in Kamanyola in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo paralysed the town and faced off against police today, angered by poor security, local sources said.
"Residents, mostly angry young people, last night destroyed Kamanyola administrative centre and burned all the files," the administrator of Walungu territory in South Kivu province, Dominique Bofondo, told AFP.
The violence erupted after a money-changer was murdered at his home in the town, which lies on the main road linking provincial capital Bukavu and Uvira.
Kamanyola came under attack by an armed group last year.
By midday today, police fired warning shots to disperse demonstrators who were trying to set fire to a police station, according to Bofondo and witnesses in the town.
"All activities are currently paralysed in Kamanyola, the Bukavu-Uvira road... is barricaded, schools and commercial businesses" have been shut down, teacher Joe Lushindi told AFP by telephone.
In targeting premises seen as symbols of the Congolese state, "young people are showing how fed up they are with growing insecurity", Bofondo added.
North and South Kivu provinces, lying on the country's eastern border, saw an upsurge in 2017 of attacks by many of the dozens of tribal militias and other armed groups active in the region since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003.
At the end of September last year, the Congolese armed forces clashed with a self-defence militia known as the Mai- Mai Yakutumba as its men approached Uvira on the northern shore of Lake Tanganyika.
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