Eighteen people were killed in clashes between two communities in the western Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month, according to a government report seen by AFP Sunday.
Fighting broke out between the Yaka and Teke people following a dispute over taxes and land, people in Mai-Ndombe province told AFP.
Members of the Teke community consider themselves the original inhabitants of villages spread over 200 kilometers (124 miles) along the Congo River.
In early August there was knifepoint fighting with the Yaka community, who settled afterward, in the town of Kwamouth, about 100 kilometers from the capital Kinshasa.
โIn the conflict between the Yaka and Teke in the province of Mai-Ndombe, 18 people were killed, including nine on the side of Yaka of Masia, including the chief of the land and his wife,โ said Culture Minister Catherine Kathungu in the minutes of the Council of Ministers.
She added: โ175 houses were burnt down and an AK47 weapon belonging to an element of the Congolese National Police was taken away by the Teke assailantsโ.
Rita Bola, the governor of Mai-Ndombe province, said Kwamouth was โcalm nowโ.
โThe army is now deployed all around to secure the populationโ, Bola said.
Members of the Yaka community had refused to pay a โcustomary royaltyโ to traditional Teke chiefs, said Abbe Felicien Boduka, president of the Justice and Peace Commission of the diocese of Inongo in Mai-Ndombe.
โWe Yaka no longer wanted to pay this tax because the Constitution allows Congolese to settle freely anywhere on the national territory,โ Gregoire Losoto, a development worker who abandoned his cassava fields and fish ponds in Kwamouth told AFP.
โThe situation worsened in August because the Yaka installed their customary chief to replace a former Teke customary chief,โ he said.
The Yaka chief and his wife were killed โby assailantsโ, according to several witnesses interviewed by AFP.
