Congolese officials temporarily placed President Laurent Kabila's son in charge of the government yesterday, a day after numerous foreign officials said the ruler of this troubled nation was shot and killed during a coup attempt.
Communications Minister Dominique Sakombi Inongo, who made the announcement on state-run television after an emergency Cabinet meeting, insisted Kabila was injured but alive.
The news came as Congolese officials appeared to be struggling to fill a power vacuum in the already unstable and war-ravaged Central African country. As dawn broke over the capital yesterday, tanks and soldier-filled trucks patrolled quiet and empty streets as helicopters cruised overhead.
The younger Kabila, Joseph, is already head of the armed forces and was reported to have been injured in the shooting.
State-run television broadcast footage of the uniformed major general sitting alone silently, though it was not immediately clear when the images were recorded.
Presidential spokesman Lambert Kaboye earlier said in a telephone interview that Kabila was evacuated overnight to an undisclosed country, where he was receiving intensive treatment. He declined to elaborate.
A lobbyist and public relations consultant who acts as Kabila's spokesman in the US, however, said the president had been fatally shot.
"He's died," John Aycoth said Tuesday by telephone from Durham, North Carolina, citing top-level Congolese officials.
Officials from Angola, Congo's close ally, also said Kabila had been killed.
In Zimbabwe, another ally, top-ranking government officials told the state-run news agency yesterday that Kabila died on route to the capital, Harare, where he had been evacuated for his safety. The government was waiting for instructions on what to do with the body, according to the unidentified officials.
A member of Kabila's security entourage said late Tuesday on condition of anonymity that a bodyguard had shot the president in the back and right leg during 30 minutes of intense gunfire at the president's Kinshasa residence.
French and Belgian foreign ministry officials quoted local sources as saying they believed Kabila died of his injuries following the gunfire.
Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Louis Michel said in a radio interview yesterday morning that he had received reports that Kabila was killed following a disagreement with some of his army generals.
"The latest information we have seems to suggest there were differences between the president and a certain number of generals that went badly," Michel said. "It's not sure if it was a general or a bodyguard who fired" on Kabila.
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