South African diplomats said Sunday their countrymen started to pull out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as two South African peacekeepers in the DRC were killed on the same day in an attack by unidentified armed men.  

Sisa Ngombane, South Africa's ambassador to the DRC, told South African radio SABC that some South African companies have evacuated a number of their employees from Kinshasa, capital of the DRC.

South Africans' evacuation followed a series of protests by people angry at the UN force in the DRC for its failure last week to prevent the fall of the key eastern border town of Bukavu to dissident troops.

Ngombane said Kinshasa was calm on Sunday morning and security forces were in control of the situation.

The South African diplomatic mission in the DRC confirmed that the two soldiers were killed near Rugari, about 40 kilometers north of the eastern city of Goma, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa on Sunday night.

Eleven South African peacekeepers were wounded in the same incident, Mamoepa was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association.

The peacekeepers' platoon was attacked some 10 km north of the eastern Congolese city of Goma, which is on the border with Rwanda.

About 1,200 South African peacekeepers are reportedly deployed in the vast central African country.

About 40 peacekeepers have died in the DRC since the UN mission, known as MONUC, was deployed in 2001, when the country was still in the throes of rebel war that sucked in troops from more than half a dozen countries in the region.

Anti-MONUC protests took place across the country in the wake of last Wednesday's capture of Bukavu by troops led by dissident officers. The takeover took place in the presence of hundreds of MONUC troops.

Several people were killed in Kinshasa as security forces shot at looters during the demonstrations.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2004)