Kananga, DR Congo | AFP | Seventeen members of an insurgent group in the central DR Congo region of Kasai were killed Wednesday and others captured in an army ambush, police said. Local police captain Desire Bidwaya said Thursday the prisoners were being held at army headquarters pending their transfer …
Read More »Troubled region of Kasai provides key test for DR Congo
Tshikapa, DR Congo | AFP | Of the many headaches facing the UN mission in DR Congo as its mandate comes up for renewal, few are greater than the ethnic bloodshed and brewing humanitarian crisis in the Kasai region. The sprawling diamond-rich region exploded into violence in September 2016 after …
Read More »Militia chief turns himself in to Kasai authorities in DR Congo
Kananga, DR Congo | AFP | A militia chief accused of waging a weeks-long terror campaign in DR Congo’s Kasai region has surrendered to the authorities, a local official said Tuesday. “Chief Kalamba Dilondo came to Kakenge of his own accord (on Monday),” Jacopo Pembe Longo, administrator of Mweka territory …
Read More »Nine killed in Kasai clashes in DR Congo
Kananga, DR Congo | AFP | Two days of unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s southern opposition stronghold of Kasai have left nine people dead, local sources said on Tuesday. The anti-government Kamwina Nsapu militia “killed four people Monday in the village of Bata Ishama” in Kasai province, local …
Read More »Kasai marks a year of bloodshed as doubt hangs over DR Congo poll
TSHIKAPA, DR Congo | AFP |“Before, we were able to go to work in any mine to dig for diamonds. But today, we’re all afraid of dying,” artisanal miner Banayi Ilunga says grimly. Diamonds are the blessing of Kasai, a vast region of five provinces in Democratic Republic of Congo …
Read More »UN reports 251 killings in DR Congo’s Kasai, 62 children among dead
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The UN on Friday detailed more than 250 “extrajudicial or targeted killings” in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kasai region from mid-March to mid-June, counting dozens of children among the dead. The findings, based on interviews with refugees from Kasai who had fled to Angola, blamed …
Read More »Eight DR Congo soldiers get stiff jail terms for Kasai killings
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | A military court in DR Congo on Thursday handed stiff jail terms, including life imprisonment, to eight soldiers for killing civilians in the violence-wracked central Kasai region following mounting pressure from the UN. In less than a year, brutal violence in four central Kasai provinces …
Read More »UN gives $5mn in aid for crisis-hit region in DR Congo
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The United Nations announced aid worth $5 million (4.7 million euros) on Saturday to help people affected by the humanitarian crisis in the violence-wracked Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The remote, central region has been plagued by violence since mid-August when …
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