Security forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have fired live rounds and teargas to disperse demonstrators who burned tires and allegedly attacked Ebola centres in a protest against a decision to exclude them from the presidential election.

The electoral commission (CENI) announced on Wednesday that it was cancelling voting in the election on Sunday in the eastern cities of Beni and Butembo, and their surrounding areas, because of a continuing Ebola outbreak and militia violence.

The areas are strongholds of opposition to the outgoing president, Joseph Kabila, and local politicians denounced the move as an effort to swing the vote in favour of his preferred candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. Giscard Yere, a Beni resident, said: “There was a group of demonstrators who wanted to enter the CENI office … to demand the withdrawal of the decision. But the police officers and soldiers who were there fired to disperse the demonstrators.” Protesters ransacked an Ebola isolation centre in Beni and it is possible patients fled, said Aruna Abedi, the deputy director of the Ebola response.(theguardian)…[+]