KINSHASA (AFP) — Six Congolese nationals were killed and five injured in clashes on Lake Albert, a natural border between DR Congo and Uganda where oil was recently discovered, a UN official said Tuesday.
A Ugandan army spokesman said earlier that two Congolese soldiers and one Ugandan soldier had died in a clash in Ugandan waters on Monday, involving a barge belonging to Canada's Heritage Oil Corp.
The UN mission in the DR Congo, MONUC, said Tuesday that there had been "two separate incidents" on Monday at Lake Albert.
"There was a firefight on Monday afternoon on Lake Albert in which six (Congolese) were killed and five were wounded," said MONUC's military spokesman Gabriel de Brosses.
De Brosses said the dead included a Congolese soldier, two other men, two women and a child.
According to witnesses speaking to the UN-backed Okapi radio, eight Ugandan soldiers on a motorised dinghy swooped up to a passenger boat carrying around 40 passengers and opened fire after two Congolese soldiers onboard refused to give up their weapons.
Canada's Heritage Oil Corp on Tuesday said its ship was not at the centre of the clash.
The company also challenged a UN official, who told AFP the oil exploration vessel was escorted out of "Congolese waters" to "avoid increasing tensions" between the two nations and "to ensure the crew's safety."
Heritage said its vessel was "within Ugandan waters in Lake Albert in the process of lifting cables to mark the completion of a seismic survey" when a UN patrol boat detained the ship and its crew.
"This was a routine check, not hostile, and there was full co-operation. After a short interview at shore, the vessel and crew were released and returned to base in Uganda," a statement said.
The clash between border forces was a "separate, unrelated, isolated incident," it added. "No employees or sub-contractors of Heritage were involved."
In a second episode, according to the UN, Uruguayan soldiers belonging to MONUC discovered the Heritage vessel on the DR Congo side of the lake and escorted it to a Congolese border town, according to Michel Bonnardeaux, MONUC spokesman for civilian affairs.
He said no violence occurred at that time.
The Ugandan army spoke earlier of one incident involving the Heritage vessel in which three soldiers -- two Congolese and one Ugandan -- had died.
"There was an exchange of fire. Two Congolese soldiers were killed and one of our own also died," Kicoco Tabaro, army spokesman for western Uganda, told AFP by telephone.
Tabaro insisted that the vessel belonging to Canada's Heritage Oil Corp had been on the Ugandan side of Lake Albert when it was seized and commandeered to the Congolese side.
Tension between the two Great Lakes nations has shot up since August 1 when Uganda accused DRC troops of killing a British engineer exploring for oil on the Ugandan side of Lake Albert.
Oil companies have been working in the region for many years, and last year Heritage and Australia's Hardman Resources said they had found large deposits there and would start extraction in 2009.
Uganda invaded DR Congo in 1998 during its neighbour's civil war in 1998 on the ground it was tracking down Ugandan rebels. Some Ugandan troops were accused of wide rights abuses and of plundering gold and diamonds.
Kampala and Kinshasa signed an agreement in September in Tanzania to open "joint oil exploration and exploitation" in Lake Albert.
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