School students attacked in northeast DR Congo

Armed men in northeastern DR Congo on Monday attacked a hostel for students taking school-leaving exams, raping at least one of them, local sources said.

In an overnight assault, unidentified men attacked a facility housing 32 students at Isiro, the main city of Haut-Uele province in the northeast, clergyman Georges Semende told AFP.

The 16 boys and 16 girls "had been gathered here to sit the exam," he said. "These bandits raped the girls."

The local governor's spokesman, Felicien Nangana, confirmed one rape.

"Despite this trauma, they agreed to take the exam," the priest said, adding that the authorities had launched an investigation.

In a separate incident in South Kivu province, about 700 students and their teachers fled their school after fighting broke out nearby, said Nyange Saluba, an official with a civil society group.

Local armed groups and militias from the Banyamulenge group -- Congolese Rwandan-speaking Tutsis -- have been clashing for months over land and resources in parts of the province.

"We have chased them away," Captain Dieudonne Kasereka, the local army spokesman told AFP, adding that the attackers wanted to "sabotage the exams".

On Thursday, armed men attacked an examination centre in Masisi territory in North Kivu province, killing two primary students and wounding two others.

The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the school calendar in the country, where over half of the over 80 million population is aged under 20.

The school-leaving exams began on Monday after being postponed.