Kinshasa - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Congo opposition spokesman’s death ruled a suicide

A prosecutor in the Democratic Republic of Congo said that the death of a former minister and opposition party member last year has been ruled as suicide. The news of Cherubin Okende's death prompted small anti-government protests in Kinshasa last year, with demonstrators saying it was an assassination. A spokesperson for his party called Thursday's ruling "absurd". Okende, a former transport minister who was also a member of parliament and spokesman for the Ensemble pour la Republique party, was found dead in his car in July. "According to the results of the investigations, Cherubin Okende committed suicide," Firmin Mvonde Mambu, prosecutor general…

Feb

2024

By The African Mirror

DRC protests: expert explains why Congolese anger against the west is justified – and useful to the government

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

SINCE early February, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, has been rocked by protests directed against Western embassies. Protests took place in front of the British and French embassies and in front of United Nations buildings. Throughout the city, American and Belgian flags were burned. KRISTOF TITECA, Professor in International Development, University of Antwerp The protesters are denouncing what they believed to be Western complicity in the war in the east of the DRC. These protests were triggered by the renewed advance of the rebel movement M23. M23 is led by Congolese Tutsi and is the latest in the…

Jan

2024

By ANGE ADIHE KASONGO

Congo’s Tshisekedi fights poll fraud accusations with ‘spirit of openness’

NEWS

WHEN Democratic Republic of Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner of another disputed election, he pledged to be a leader for all its 100 million people. However, accusations by opposition leaders of electoral fraud and political repression will likely cloud his second term as it did the first. His main rivals rejected Sunday's outcome before it was announced and called for a rerun. Speaking to supporters at his campaign headquarters in Kinshasa, Tshisekedi appealed for unity. "It is with a spirit of openness that I'll govern during this second term," Tshisekedi told a jubilant crowd, adding that he would focus…

Jan

2024

By ANGE ADIHE KASONGO

Congo President Tshisekedi re-elected, election commission says

NEWS

DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi has been re-elected for a second term after getting more than 73% of the vote in this month's presidential election, the country's election commission said. Announcing the results on Sunday in the capital Kinshasa, Denis Kadima, the head of Congo's national election commission known as the CENI, said Tshisekedi was elected with 73.34% of the vote having obtained over 13 million votes out of over 18 million valid votes. Turnout in the disputed election was at over 43%, Kadima said. Earlier on Sunday a group of Congo's main opposition presidential candidates asked supporters…

Dec

2023

By The African Mirror

Congo bans opposition election protest scheduled for Wednesday

NEWS

DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo's government banned an opposition protest over last week's chaotic national election as early results showed President Felix Tshisekedi in the lead. Five opposition presidential candidates called the joint demonstration in the capital Kinshasa over alleged election irregularities. But on Tuesday the government banned the event, saying it did not have a legal basis and was aimed at undermining the electoral process while the election commission was still compiling results. "No government in the world can accept this, so we will not let it happen," Vice Prime Minister Peter Kazadi told a press conference, referring to the protest. The…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

Pope offers a solution to end DRC conflict

NEWS

PHILIP PULLELLA and ESTELLE SHIRBON POPE Francis heard harrowing accounts from victims of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including rape, amputation, forced cannibalism and sexual slavery, and he condemned the atrocities as war crimes. In a poignant encounter at the Vatican's embassy in the capital Kinshasa, victim after the victim told their story to the pontiff before laying down objects symbolising their suffering, such as a machete or a dagger, before a large wooden crucifix. They included Ladislas Kambale Kombi, 16, from a village in North Kivu province in the east, who saw his father beheaded and dismembered…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Pope’s Africa Visit: Police demolish trader stalls

NEWS

BEFORE dawn, sanitary police armed with crowbars and a bulldozer set about demolishing makeshift trader stalls crowding downtown streets in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo ahead of a four-day visit by Pope Francis starting January 31. Officials say Kinshasa, a vast impoverished city of 17 million people, is getting a facelift not just to honour the pope but to make its streets and pavements more tidy and orderly even after he's gone home. But evicted small traders protest that their livelihoods are being destroyed in the process. "The clean-up we are doing just now is not only because…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

Anti-Rwanda protests break out in east DRC

NEWS

THOUSANDS joined anti-Rwanda protests in the east Congolese city of Goma on Monday, denouncing Rwanda's alleged support of M23 rebels as Kinshasa recalled its interim acting ambassador from Kigali in a further souring of relations. Rwanda denies Congo's long-standing accusations that it backs the M23, a Tutsi-led rebel group that has attacked Congolese forces near the Rwandan border since 2012. Tensions escalated this month after the group launched a new offensive in North Kivu province and captured the strategic town of Kiwanja on Saturday, prompting Congolese authorities to expel the Rwandan ambassador. Congo's foreign ministry went further on Monday, recalling the…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Former NBA player picked as new Senegal coach, state-of-the-art stadium for Kinshasa

SPORT

SILALEI SHANI, BIRD STORY AGENCY SENEGAL’S technical bench will get some new faces as they continue their journey after the recent firing of Boniface Ndong by Senegal’s basketball federation. As per ESPN writer, Marc J. Spears, G League Westchester Knicks Head Coach and former NBA Center Desagana Diopwill be appointed as the incoming head coach. Senegal, who are ranked 33 in FIBA World rankings, lost to Egypt and Congo during the recently concluded 3rd window of qualifiers after a strenuous journey to Alexandria for the tournament. Former head coach, Ndong accepted his dismissal but sought to provideclarification on what happened…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Car-exhaust drug craze alarms Congo’s capital

NEWS

BENOIT NYEMBA A new craze for a drug derived from crushed vehicle exhaust filters is rattling authorities in Kinshasa, triggering a campaign to stamp out the concoction and a related rash of car part thefts. In August police rounded up and paraded nearly 100 alleged dealers and users of the drug "bombe", which means powerful in the local Lingala language, following a call to action by Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi. "This social phenomenon calls for collective responsibility by the whole nation," Tshisekedi told ministers at a weekly meeting. In an abandoned shack in a suburb of Kinshasa,…