Four security forces and one civilian were killed as separatist rebels attacked two military camps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s main mining centre of Lubumbashi, the city’s mayor said.
Lubumbashi Mayor Ghislain Robert Lubaba Buluma told the AFP news agency on Sunday that six of the rebels were gunned down in the attacks.
Fortune Mbaya, a civil society leader, said the attackers had identified themselves as members of the separatist Bakata-Katanga militia.
Residents reported the sounds of gunfire in several districts following the assaults.
Lubumbashi is the country’s second-largest city and the capital of the south-eastern Katanga region.
Former President Joseph Kabila, who comes from the region, returned there in December after a tussle for power between his supporters and his successor Felix Tshisekedi.
Incursions by the Bataka-Katanga, fighting for the region to secede from DRC, occur frequently in Lubumbashi. Two policemen and a soldier were killed in the last attack on September 26.