Floods kill over 170 people in east DR Congo

“This toll is provisional,” he said. “We also have about 100 people missing.”

Archimede Karhebwa, the assistant administrator of Kalehe, had earlier told AFP that about 100 people had died, according to a provisional toll.

A day of national mourning will be observed on Monday with flags lowered to half-mast “in memory of the lost compatriots”, the government announced on Friday evening.

Several villages in Kalehe were submerged when rivers burst their banks after heavy rains, he said.

Karhebwa said the floods carried away hundreds of houses and also “surprised vendors and their clients in the markets”.

Innocent Mupenda, a civil society figure from the region, said a downpour started on Thursday afternoon, before the “river carried away villagers”.