A total of 18 Somalis have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo after travelling from neighbouring Zambia in a container truck packed with fish, Zambian police say.
Hudson Namachila, the Luapula province police commissioner, said 11 suffocated to death in the truck while another seven later died after the authorities in DR Congo rejected help from Zambia.
The truck stopped just after it had crossed the border into DR Congo because of the knocking from the passengers in the back.
Mr Namachila told the BBC's Kennedy Gondwe in Lusaka that DR Congo had now shut the border with Zambia and had arrested the two Zambian drivers and the Somalis who had survived the journey.
When Zambia's security forces went across the border yesterday, they found there were 44 Somalis: 11 dead, 20 "gasping for breath" and 13 who were OK, he said.
The number of dead had since risen to 18, but DR Congo's authorities were still refusing "humanitarian" aid from Zambia on the grounds that it could not operate across its border, the police commissioner said.
DR Congo has not yet commented on the allegation.
Mr Namachila said he did not know who the Somalis were and why they were travelling in the container truck.
BBC AFRICA
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