Two candidates for parliament in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's general election on December 20 were killed in separate events on Friday, as a rights group warned in a report released on Saturday that electoral violence risked undermining the vote.

A candidate for the ruling coalition in the eastern Congo region's South Kivu province was assassinated by unknown gunmen on Friday evening while returning from a campaign event, a regional government official told Reuters.

PHOTO | COURTESY campaigns

Another governing coalition candidate in Beni, in the North Kivu province of eastern Congo, died late Friday night from bullet wounds after his campaign convoy was assaulted, according to Jeremie Muhindo, director of the Beni hospital.

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Congo will have a national election. Along with the violence, opposition parties and independent observers have warned that issues such as unreadable voter cards, barred campaign planes, and electoral list delays jeopardize the results' credibility.


Election-related violence, according to Human Rights Watch, threatens to discredit the election.

"Since early October, Human Rights Watch has documented clashes across the country between supporters of rival political parties that have resulted in assaults, sexual violence and at least one death," according to the report.

It went on to say that the violence was coming from both supporters of the ruling coalition and opposition parties and that incidences were still being recorded.

The Church of Christ in Congo, an evangelical church, stated in a statement on Friday that their temple in Kinshasa had been vandalized after violent skirmishes between followers of an opposition leader and those of the ruling coalition.

In a second event unrelated to the election, a deputy mayor reported that at least 11 individuals, including six women, were decapitated in an attack on a village in Ituri province on Friday.

The attack was carried out by militants affiliated with the Islamic State's Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which operates in the eastern Congo region.