UN on high alert ahead of Congo election
UN troops in armoured vehicles are standing guard at the site of a three-day gun battle that broke out between forces loyal to president Joseph Kabila and a former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The gun battle followed the announcement of results from the first-round election two months ago.
This time around, the two candidates facing each other in a presidential run-off in Kinshasa on Sunday have pledged to shun violence and the United Nations is stepping up security.
However, there are still plenty of armed men with varied allegiances on the streets - and plenty of people bracing for possible unrest.
The run-off pits Kabila against Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel chief who became one of four vice presidents in the power-sharing government set up after the end of Congo’s war in 2002.
Bemba is popular in Kinshasa but considered an underdog in the race. Congo’s landmark election is the culmination of a transition to democratic rule after more than four decades of despotism and war that ravaged the mineral-rich Central African nation of nearly 60 million people and 250 ethnic groups.
