BATTLE FOR BAKWANGA

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29301, 5 September 1960, Page 11

BATTLE FOR BAKWANGA

500 March Against Lumumba

(N.Z. Press Association—Copy right) (Rec. 11 pjn.) ELISABETHVILLE, September 4. Five hundred fully-armed troops crossed the Lubilash river from Katanga today and started to march on Bakwanga, capital of the so-called “Mining State,” which forms part of Kasai province, British United Press reported. The river was crossed without opposition from the forces of the Congo Prime Minister, Mr Patrice Lumumba.

Officials of the Belgian diplomatic mission in Elisabethville said that the fighting round Bakwanga, captured early this week by Congo Republic forces, had reached a level of ferocity unprecedented in the Congo. Late reports said the 500 men marching on Bakwanga were made up of 300 who left Elisabethville on Thursday and 200 who joined them at Kamina. There were unconfirmed reports that Mr Lumumba was beginning to move troops south through Kivu province to the northern border of Katanga. United Nations officials said that one company of Lumumba troops had already reached Kasongo, in the extreme south of Kivu.

Mr Lumumba is known to have strong troops units in northern Kivu.

The 500 men reported to be marching on Bakwanga are part of the forces of Chief Kalonji, of the Kasai State. Officials in Elisabethville today flatly denied that they were being led by European officers. This statement, however, is at variance with claims made today by the second-in-command of the Katanga Army, Commandant Perrat, who insisted that French. Belgian and Rhodesian “technicians” were leading the Kalonji forces.

Officials of the Belgian civil mission said fierce fighting was going on outside Bakwanga, but would give no source for their statement. They claimed that no quarter was being given on either side and that the Lumumba forces were kiUing men, women, and children.

The 120 Europeans still in Bakwanga are still safe, as far as is known. They are being guarded by a Tunisian United Nations unit.

Other reports, also from Belgian sources, said heavy fighting has been going one round the villages of Luputa and Mwen-zith with Lumumba forces defending them from behind prepared positions.