UN and European peacekeepers evacuated a group of foreign ambassadors On Monday from the house of Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba, where they were trapped because of gunfire, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The UN peacekeepers from Uruguay backed by Spanish legionnaires in armored vehicles, evacuated the diplomats from Bemba's residence in Kinshasa. The diplomats were meeting Bemba, to mediate in the dispute between him and President Joseph Kabila when the attack took place.

The trapped diplomats, included the chief of UN peacekeeping missions in the DRC (MONUC), William Swing, and ambassadors from the International Committee for Accompanying the Transition (CIAT).

CIAT includes representatives from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council-- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- as well as those of Angola, Belgium, Canada, Gabon, South Africa, and Zambia, and also officials of MONUC, the European Union and the African Union.

Bemba's spokesman said that heavily armed members of Kabila's presidential guards carried out the attack, while Kabila's aides said that the presidential guards only acted to deal with what they perceived as an armed threat to Kabila.

The attack followed sporadic clashes on Sunday, when election officials announced that Kabila is set to face Bemba in a presidential runoff after no single candidate gathered more than 50 percent of votes, in the first round of presidential elections.

On Sunday, at least three people, including a Japanese, were killed in exchanges of fire, and dozens, including two Chinese, were injured.

Source: Xinhua