DRC Has Taken Rwanda To The World Court Over Genocide Again. A Law Scholar Explains What’s Different This Time

The Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, which is the seat of the International Court of Justice. Wikimedia Commons

BY KERSTIN BREE CARLSON

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR INTERNATIONAL

LAW, ROSKILDE UNIVERSITY, DENMARK

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) filed a lawsuit against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice at the end of June 2026. The 60-page complaint alleges acts of genocide and other atrocity crimes by Rwandan forces and their intermediaries dating from 1996 to the present day.

The DRC has twice before brought similar cases against Rwanda at this court. Both failed on questions of jurisdiction. So, what explains yet another case against Rwanda? Kerstin Bree Carlson, a scholar of international justice and author of a book on international law in Africa, examines this history and what’s behind the DRC’s confidence in its latest push.
What did the DRC’s previous cases involve?

The DRC has twice tried to bring Rwanda before the International Court of Justice in relation to violence carried out or backed by Rwanda on its soil. It was unsuccessful both times.

In 1999, the DRC brought claims against Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda before the court over the armed invasion of its territory. It sought reparations for armed aggression and intentional acts of destruction and looting.

It later dropped its claims against Rwanda and Burundi because neither country had consented to the court’s jurisdiction.

The case against Uganda went ahead, and in 2005 the court ruled in the DRC’s favour. It found that Uganda was responsible for acts of violence in the country. In 2022, the court ordered Uganda to pay US$325 million in reparations, marking a significant victory for the DRC. Kampala paid the first instalment of US$65 million that year.

In 2002, the DRC resubmitted claims against Rwanda.

The DRC invoked eight international treaties, including the Genocide Convention. This is a UN treaty that entered into force in 1951 and establishes genocide as an international crime.

The International Court of Justice dismissed the DRC’s case on jurisdictional grounds, which drew criticism. The court said it lacked the authority to hear the dispute because Rwanda had entered a “reservation” when it joined the Genocide Convention, rejecting the court’s jurisdiction under the treaty. In the 2006 ruling, a majority of International Court of Justice judges recognised the validity of this reservation.
What has happened in the past 20 years that might change the outcome?

First, in 2008 Rwanda withdrew its reservation to International Court of Justice jurisdiction under the Genocide Convention and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (which came into force in 1969). That means that the jurisdictional hurdle relating to Rwanda’s consent is resolved.

The DRC has invoked both these treaties in its current submission to the court.

Second, in 2008 Rwanda became a party to the Convention Against Torture (which came into force in 1987). Claims made under this UN treaty do not need to meet the same rigorous “intent” standard that genocide claims do. Further, the court’s jurisprudence is well established under the torture convention. For example, claims under this treaty played a critical role in efforts to bring Chad’s former president Hissène Habré to justice.

The DRC has invoked this history in its submission.

Third, international law has evolved. Recent cases like The Gambia’s suit againt Myanmar (2019) and South Africa’s case against Israel (2023) have expanded the Genocide Convention’s reach.

Together, these factors suggest that the DRC’s third attempt may have a stronger chance of clearing the jurisdictional hurdle. However, whether this would eventually lead to a judgment against Rwanda is much harder to predict.
Why has the DRC turned to international law?

International law, the law of nations, creates all nations as equals. The International Court of Justice is the oldest, most established global arbiter of disputes between them.

There are two principles of international law that play out in this case.

First, states are generally bound only by obligations they have explicitly accepted. This includes agreeing to the jurisdiction of the court. Second, international courts have no police force or other means of enforcing their judgments. It is up to states themselves to comply with court rulings. This compliance includes a duty on other states not to recognise as lawful situations created through serious breaches of international law.

Although the court cannot compel states to act, its opinions matter. They represent the most authoritative statements of international legal norms. In other words, International Court of Justice judgments represent the clearest statements we have regarding how international legal principles apply in practice.

Recognising international law’s persuasive power is key to understanding why the DRC has repeatedly turned to the International Court of Justice and other international courts to seek rulings against Rwanda and its proxies. These include the International Criminal Court and the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. International lawfare represents a principled battle for recognition and legitimacy.
Why does the case matter?

The DRC’s creative legal attempts to bring Rwanda to justice in relation to its engagement in and support of armed conflict in the DRC over the past several decades are efforts to invalidate violent incursions on its soil. It also seeks to reassert its sovereignty by having Rwandan-backed violence recognised as illegal by international law’s apex court.

As I have argued before and in my book examining international law in Africa, the power of international law resides in states’ agreements to use it in place of violent conflagration, and to be bound by it.

Rwanda challenges these standards in both regards. Credible allegations of Rwandan-backed massacres in the DRC date from 1996 through to the present day. Despite being the recipient of significant international legal investment, Rwanda resists participating as a good international citizen. So far, neither Rwanda nor its allies are addressing or redressing its behaviour.

By contrast, the DRC is expanding international law’s promise and potential by applying it as intended. International law derives its power chiefly from the expectations it creates.

The DRC is not blameless in the three decades of violence its submission describes. But by framing that violence through the lens of international law, the country helps legitimise alternatives to violence.

Ebola Outbreak In The DRC: Four Reasons It Will Be Hard To Contain

A road leading into Goma, the capital of the province of North Kivu in DR Congo. Picture by guenterguni/Getty Images

BY JIA B. KANGBAI

SENIOR LECTURER, 

NJALA UNIVERSITY

By the second week of the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo it was already clear that containing the spread of the haemorrhagic disease was proving to be difficult.

On 17 May 2026, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. This is its highest level of global health alert. It is mostly reserved for an extraordinary disease outbreak or event that is a public health risk to many countries through international spread and hence requires global coordinated efforts.

According to the WHO, as of 19 May 2026 the DRC had recorded more than 500 cases and 130 deaths, while its neighbour (Uganda) had recorded two cases and one death.

These statistics are huge considering that the current outbreak was only declared on 15 May. The largest Ebola outbreak was in west Africa from December 2013 to March 2016. It caused 28,652 infections resulting in 11,325 deaths in 10 countries; 99% of the fatalities were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Infectious disease outbreaks are nothing new for the DRC, a central African country. Last year, while other parts of the world were shaking off the global mpox outbreak, the DRC was still struggling with it.

But the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC has potential to become huge and of long duration.

I am an infectious disease epidemiologist with experience of dealing with the Ebola outbreak in 2013-2016 in Sierra Leone.

In my view there are four reasons while this outbreak will be hard to contain:

late detection and insecurity

misdiagnosis

cultural factors

shortage of global health funds.

Late detection

One of the challenges is the time between a person being infected and being diagnosed (identifying the disease in a laboratory). This detection lag is a major problem because to control the spread of the disease, infected individuals need to be isolated. Ebola is highly contagious.

Late detection was responsible for the early deaths and increased number of Ebola cases in Sierra Leone during the 2013-2016 outbreak. Early cases went unnoticed there because Ebola was new in the country. Clinicians and laboratory scientists were totally unfamiliar with it.

The DRC is familiar with Ebola outbreaks and has witnessed more than any other country.

But in the DRC, late detection is fuelling the rapid spread of the disease and is primarily due to insecurity in the region.

The time it takes to identify an infectious pathogen in the laboratory depends on how long it takes for the pathogen to replicate to detectable level, the type of laboratory tests used, and (for some diseases) the development of antibodies. Ideally, for Ebola virus it varies between one and 32 days.

The first confirmed case was a resident of Goma, a town which lies on the border with Rwanda and is highly unstable. Fighting between DRC government forces and rebels (believed to be backed by Rwanda) has been going on around Goma for a long time.

The instability and volatility of the epicentre of the outbreak is having a major impact. Under those conditions, an infectious disease thrives and outbreaks mostly go unnoticed.

The number of Ebola cases and deaths that have been registered in the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC is difficult to place within the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model, a tool used in epidemiology. Ebola’s R0 (basic reproduction number, a measure of disease transmission) ranges between 1.5 and 2.5, which means within a susceptible Goma population, a single infected person can spread the virus to an average of 1.5-2.5 Goma residents.

However, the current Ebola incidence and deaths in the DRC exceed the expected number of secondary infections based on Ebola’s basic reproduction number. As of 21 May there were over 136 suspected deaths, 35 confirmed cases, and more than 600 suspected cases caused by the Bundibugyo strain in the ongoing outbreak in the DRC.

Misdiagnosis

The delay in diagnosis may also have been due to subtle early Ebola symptoms that can be misdiagnosed. Both malaria and typhoid have identical fever symptoms.

During the early days of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, many nurses working at the Kenema Government Hospital and the Lassa Fever Hospital lost their lives because they misdiagnosed the disease as Lassa fever. Ebola and Lassa fever belong to the same class of viral haemorrhagic fever diseases since patients present with similar symptoms and pathophysiologies (what the disease does to the body).

The other challenge with diagnosis in this outbreak is that it is a different virus to the one treated in the most recent Ebola outbreaks. Bundibugyo virus was first identified in Uganda in 2007. Unlike Zaire Ebola virus disease, which was discovered decades ago, the relative newness of Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease means it’s less researched, especially in terms of vaccine and medicine development.

Cultural factors

Other factors affecting the spread are cultural practices such as ritual burials. Ritual burials are common in many African countries, like Sierra Leone and the DRC. These are ceremonies born out of the belief that death is a sacred passage to another world or ancestral realm. Mostly it starts with communal grieving and wake keeping, followed by the ceremonial preparation of the body.

In Sierra Leone a ritual burial of a high priest who died of Ebola in the southern town of Moyamba during the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreaks led to the death of scores of people who took part in ceremonial preparation of his body. It is not surprising to learn of relatives setting Ebola hospital tents on fire simply because they were prevented from handling the corpse of their loved one.

Shortage of global health funds

The cuts in global health funds and the ending of many projects through the dissolution of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is greatly affecting the operations and effectiveness of public health activities around the world.

Most global health security projects aimed to prepare for and mitigate any future disease outbreak.

Sierra Leone and other countries affected by the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreaks benefited immensely from international donor (including USAID) support during that outbreak.

Unfortunately, the DRC will have less international support to help fight this outbreak. The country has long experience in tackling disease outbreaks (especially Ebola) but the lack of experts and logistics on site implies an extended delay in managing this situation. The DRC has the people and the necessary labs and facilities. The major challenge with the current outbreak is that it started in an insecure environment where access to testing facilities are scarce, hence the late detection.

Additionally, the country is about the size of western Europe (including France, Germany, Spain, the UK and Italy). This vast size, coupled with insecurity, will make it difficult to channel logistics across the affected regions.

What’s needed

Tackling the current Ebola outbreak in the DRC requires a rapid, multi-tiered response. It should focus on rapid case detection, multinational support, swift collaborative surveillance and community engagement.

Over the past years the DRC has served as a scientific base for major international research institutions that work on infectious diseases and medical microbiology.

In the absence of a vaccine or medication, the health authorities should embark on community engagement to raise awareness and sensitisation. They must also enforce public health laws, especially those targeting cultures that promote unsafe burials and elevate the risk of Ebola infection. This is to prevent human transmission as many people might still be out there undetected.

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The Forgotten Victims Of The Conflict In The Western DRC

M23 fighters walk down a street in Bukavu. (Photo: AFP)

BY COLIN DELFOSSE

In western Democratic Republic of Congo, clashes between the Teke and Yaka communities have spiraled into violence carried out by Mobondo militias. Deployed in 2022, the Congolese army is now struggling to protect civilians in a conflict that has largely gone unnoticed.

Along the strip of asphalt stretching 150 kilometers west toward the Congolese capital, the red berets of Colonel Matambwe march through the small town of Bankana with local youth. The health march was organized "against tribalism and to encourage dialogue between civilians and the military," explained the officer from the Republican Guard – the elite unit in charge of protecting President Félix Tshisekedi.

Since March, fighting has lessened in this region, torn apart by three years of violence between the Teke and Yaka communities. The Congolese armed forces, which were deployed in 2022 to contain the attacks, have been ordered to stop pursuing the Mobondo, grassroots militias mainly recruiting from the Yaka community, who are responsible for attacks on civilians. Yet this conflict, fueled by customary disputes and responsible for several hundred deaths, is far from being resolved.

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Dikembe Mutombo, A Hall Of Fame Player And Tireless Advocate, Dies At 58 From Brain Cancer

Retired Denver Nuggets center Dikembe Mutombo waves to the crowd as his jersey number was retired by the team during halftime of the Nuggets basketball game against the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, Octobder 29, 2016, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

BY TIM REYNOLDS

Dikembe Mutombo, a Basketball Hall of Famer who was one of the best defensive players in NBA history and a longtime global ambassador for the game, died Monday from brain cancer, the league announced. He was 58.

His family revealed two years ago that he was undergoing treatment in Atlanta for a brain tumor. The NBA said he died surrounded by his family.

“Dikembe Mutombo was simply larger than life,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “On the court, he was one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players in the history of the NBA. Off the floor, he poured his heart and soul into helping others.”

Mutombo was distinctive in so many ways — the playful finger wag at opponents after blocking their shots, his height, his deep and gravelly voice, his massive smile. Players of this generation were always drawn to him and Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon, looked to Mutombo as an inspiration.

“It’s a sad day, especially for us Africans, and really the whole world,” Embiid said Monday. “Other than what he’s accomplished on the basketball court, I think he was even better off the court. He’s one of the guys that I look up to, as far as having an impact, not just on the court, but off the court. He’s done a lot of great things. He did a lot of great things for a lot of people. He was a role model of mine. It is a sad day.”

Mutombo spent 18 seasons in the NBA, playing for Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, New York and the then-New Jersey Nets. The 7-foot-2 center out of Georgetown was an eight-time All-Star, three-time All-NBA selection and went into the Hall of Fame in 2015 after averaging 9.8 points and 10.3 rebounds per game for his career.

He also was part of one of the league’s most iconic playoff moments, helping eighth-seeded Denver oust top-seeded Seattle in the first round of the 1994 Western Conference playoffs. That best-of-five series marked the first time a No. 8 beat a No. 1 in NBA history.

“It’s really hard to believe,” Toronto President Masai Ujiri said Monday, pausing several times because he was overcome with emotion shortly after hearing the news of Mutombo’s death. “It’s hard for us to be without that guy. You have no idea what Dikembe Mutombo meant to me. ... That guy, he made us who we are. That guy is a giant, an incredible person.”

Mutombo last played during the 2008-09 season, devoting his time after retirement to charitable and humanitarian causes. He spoke nine languages and founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation in 1997, concentrating on improving health, education and quality of life for the people in the Congo.

And on occasion, LeBron James pointed out with a laugh on Monday, Mutombo didn’t necessarily improve the health of others.

“My fondest memory of Dikembe Mutombo? He fractured my face on my birthday in Cleveland with an elbow,” James, the Los Angeles Lakers’ star, said while taking several minutes Monday to pay tribute to Mutombo’s life. “I never even got an opportunity to tell him about that. But yeah. I don’t remember how old … I was in Cleveland, my first stint, and I think I was turning 22 maybe?

“I went to the hole and caught one of those Dikembe elbows, and if anybody know about the Dikembe elbows, they do not feel good. He fractured my face, and I went to the hospital that night, and I wore a mask for a little bit. That is my memory of Dikembe,” James said.

James was close on the details: Dec. 29, 2004, was when that play happened, late in the first half, one day before his 20th birthday.

Mutombo told reporters that night he wasn’t sure how James got hurt. “He was laying there and I was like, ‘What happened, what happened?’” Mutombo told the Houston Chronicle after that game. “All I know, I was running to the basket. ... LeBron turned around to stop me going to the basket. The collision happened.”

Ryan Mutombo, the Hall of Famer’s son, said in a tribute posted on social media that his father “loved others with every ounce of his being.”

“My dad is my hero because he simply cared,” Ryan Mutombo wrote. “He remains the purest heart I have ever known.”

Mutombo served on the boards of many organizations, including Special Olympics International, the CDC Foundation and the National Board for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

“There was nobody more qualified than Dikembe to serve as the NBA’s first Global Ambassador,” Silver said. “He was a humanitarian at his core. He loved what the game of basketball could do to make a positive impact on communities, especially in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo and across the continent of Africa.”

Mutombo is one of three players to win the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year four times. The others: reigning DPOY winner Rudy Gobert of the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Hall of Famer Ben Wallace.

“He was always there to talk to me and advise me on how to approach the season and take care of my body and icing after games and stretching and trying different things like yoga,” Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “He will be always remembered and may his soul rest in peace.”

Philadelphia 76ers president Daryl Morey — who was with Mutombo for many seasons in Houston — was informed of his friend’s death during the team’s media day on Monday. Tears welled in Morey’s eyes as he processed the news.

“There aren’t many guys like him,” Morey said. “Just a great human being. When I was a rookie GM in this league, my first chance in Houston, he was someone I went to all the time. ... His accomplishments on the court, we don’t need to talk about too much. Just an amazing human being, what he did off the court for Africa. Rest in peace, Dikembe.”

AP Sports Writers Steve Megargee in Milwaukee, Greg Beacham in Los Angeles and Dan Gelston in Camden, New Jersey, and Associated Press writer Ian Harrison in Toronto contributed to this report.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Q&A: Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala On Reporting, Imprisonment, And An Attempted Coup In The DRC

Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala

BY FEVEN MERID

On Sunday, Christian Malanga—an opponent of Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—and a group of supporters that reportedly included three American citizens attacked the presidential palace in an attempted coup. The attack—which was ultimately thwarted by the military, with Malanga and two others killed in the fighting—came a few months into Tshisekedi’s second term. When he won reelection in December, there were concerns of ​​electoral fraud—an echo of 2018, when he became president in what has since been described as a stolen election.

The DRC is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world; it has the world’s largest reserves of cobalt, the material used in lithium-ion batteries that power many mobile phones and electric cars, as well as high-grade copper reserves, another essential component for electronic devices. Yet because of these riches, the country has also become a site of extreme exploitation. International companies and traders benefit from corrupt contracts to control the country’s mines. The vast majority of Congolese people are excluded from this lucrative industry or left with little option other than to work in highly dangerous artisanal mines, an environment that has been likened to modern slavery. Tshisekedi has done little to change this reality, and the US and other countries have continued to support him in the name of stability.

Among other things, this all adds up to a tumultuous environment for Congolese journalists. Threats, attacks, and the risk of imprisonment plague reporters trying to cover political corruption, armed conflict in the country’s eastern region––where rebel groups like M23 have fought the Congolese military for control of mineral-rich lands—and hazardous mining work among both adults and children.

Last year, Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala, a correspondent for Jeune Afrique and Reuters who is also deputy director of the Congolese news site Actualite.cd, was jailed for six months on charges of spreading false information and forgery. He was released in March and has since continued to write about the DRC, albeit now from the US, where he has the status of permanent resident. This week, we spoke about this experience, covering multiple consequential events at once, and what the attempted coup means for the DRC going forward. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

FM: How have you been since you were released? How are you feeling?

SBT: At first, a mixture of emotions. I feel relieved, upright, and more determined than ever. But I also have within me this feeling of anger in the face of an injustice suffered. Without forgetting what happened, I decided to forgive, and I remain patient and confident for the future because the truth resists time.

I am coming out of an extremely difficult situation. The central prison of Makala—the largest prison in the Congolese capital [Kinshasa], where I was detained—was built for fifteen hundred people, and when I left had more than fifteen thousand prisoners, most of them pretrial detainees, detained in difficult situations, sleeping on the ground in unhygienic facilities. Makala prison is the antechamber of hell. I was in the VIP pavilion; for a hundred people, there were only four toilets combined with showers and only one sink to brush your teeth in the morning. The detainees in other pavilions are not treated like humans.

What do you think when you see other journalists going through similar things or other silencing tactics?

Those who were behind this affair got it all wrong. They made a serious mistake. Almost everywhere in my country, journalists are threatened, intimidated, harassed, prosecuted, unjustly imprisoned, and silenced for the simple reason that they reveal facts that disturb some. In 2023, because we revealed facts deemed disturbing by the authorities, I paid a high price with an arrest and a long illegal detention, based on false, fabricated accusations, and followed by a dictated sentence. But we don’t give up. More than ever, in the DRC as elsewhere in Africa and in the world, we are witnessing the return of predators of the free and independent press, the backbone of a healthy democracy. We will continue to raise our voices to mobilize and encourage journalists to never give in in the face of setbacks and attacks on our freedom.

Up until then, what was your experience like working as a journalist, trying to cover things like presidential elections?

Our country faces several challenges, including that of governance. I was arrested a few weeks before the elections last December. We all do quality work, and my feeling is that the authorities do not accept that a truth is told or revealed by a Congolese journalist. This fight for a free, independent, and professional press is not against the government, even less against the opposition or anyone [else], but that of a press focused solely on facts delivered without compromise or complacency.

There are many things going on in the DRC right now: war in the east, mining corruption, humanitarian crises. What is the most important thing to understand about all of these events?

First, on the internal level, we need leadership and vision. We must do everything to stop the deaths in the eastern part of the country; it is a complex situation, but we must put an end to these killings, which are hitting innocent people. And the world must be sincere with us on this issue.

Congo’s mines attract a lot of international media attention because of the exploitation of Congolese citizens and the many competing foreign powers involved. What are your thoughts on how it gets covered? And what’s your experience been like?

The media I see that are present, they have the will to do it. But you need the means, the security guarantees to access the different sites. I attempted an investigation into child labor in mining sites in Kolwezi, in the province of Lualaba, with two Swedish friends. We were prohibited from approaching these areas; the day we approached an artisanal site, we were forced to leave the province. Journalists must have easy access to information in the name of transparency, and this is not the case at the moment. The information is controlled, and independent investigation is very disapproved of by those who govern.

There is also the attempted coup that happened on Sunday, in which a few Americans were reportedly involved. What is the state of things in the DRC right now, and how does this reflect on President Tshisekedi?

It is still early to really understand what happened, as there is already a sort of communication cacophony among the authorities regarding the classification of this event. But [it] is indicative of the current situation in the country that, even if it is through violence, power must be conquered. There is a kind of despair and frustration in the country today from unease, division, disappointment, in addition to the war in the eastern part of the country and many other things. It’s a real cocktail—which, if the authorities do not become aware and respond very quickly to these problems, can lead to destabilization.

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Congo Names Third American In A Foiled Coup Plot As Mourners Gather In Utah To Remember Plot Leader

Congolese security forces secure the streets of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Sunday May 19, 2024, after Congo’s army said it has “foiled a coup” and arrested the perpetrators, including several foreigners, following a shootout between armed men in military uniform and guards of a close ally of Congo’s president that left three people dead in the capital, Kinshasa. (AP Photo/Samy Ntumba Shambuyi)

BY JESSICA DONATI, HANNAH SCHOENBAUM AND MICHAEL BIESECKER

Congo’s army spokesman on Tuesday released the name of the third American involved a foiled coup plot in Kinshasa, while family members in Utah gathered to mourn Christian Malanga, the eccentric leader of the brazen and ill-fated attack targeting the presidential palace over the weekend.

Brig. Gen. Sylvain Ekenge told The Associated Press the third American was Taylor Thomson. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Thomson was among those arrested or killed on Sunday morning following the attack on the palace and another on the residence of a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi.

Malanga, described as a naturalized American by Ekenge, was killed in a shootout at the palace after resisting arrest. The State Department said it could not confirm Malanga was a U.S. citizen. The other two confirmed Americans involved were a convicted marijuana trafficker, Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, and Malanga’s 21-year-old son, Marcel.

Authorities were still trying to untangle how Marcel Malanga went from playing high school football in Utah to allegedly trying to unseat the leader of one of Africa’s largest countries.

“My son is innocent,” his mother, Brittney Sawyer, wrote in an email to The Associated Press on Monday, declining to elaborate.

Sawyer had regularly posted proud family photos on social media, including one in December showing Marcel, a young sister and a toddler hugging in matching Christmas pajamas. In 2020, she posted photos of Marcel lifting weights and dancing during COVID lockdown.

In a Facebook post early Monday, Sawyer angrily wrote that her son had followed his father. “This was an innocent boy following his father. I’m so tired of all the videos being posted all over and being sent to me. God will take care of you people!”

One video that circulated on social media over the weekend showed her son alongside a bloodied white man, whose identity was unclear, both covered in dust and surrounded by Congolese soldiers. Marcel has his hands raised and a frightened look on his face.

On Monday, at the West Jordan home of Malanga’s mother, Chantal Malanga, relatives gathered to mourn the deceased leader. A steady flow of friends dropped by with plates of food and to offer condolences.

Sydney, a cousin of Christian Malanga’s who answered the door, told AP the family was feeling “heartbroken” and “so raw” after learning of his death. They were discussing plans for a possible funeral in Utah, she said, without giving further details.

It wasn’t clear how Malanga had recruited the other Americans for his ill-fated attack on the Congolese state. His connection to Zalman-Polun, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to trafficking marijuana, appeared to be through a gold mining company that was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by Africa Intelligence newsletter.

American businessman Cole Ducey, also named as an official in the mining company in the Mozambique journal, said he met Christian Malanga when the two were introduced by a mutual acquaintance a few years ago and briefly explored investing together in mining concessions in Mozambique. Ducey said he also met Zalman-Polun, whom Malanga had met in Washington, D.C.

Ducey said they never discussed the political situation in Congo or Malanga’s desire to be part of the government there. Ducey said he eventually decided not to go into business with the two men.

“We simply viewed a couple mining concessions in Mozambique,” Ducey said of Malanga. “I didn’t know him very well but from what I gathered he wasn’t very intelligent.”

He said he had no contact with Malanga and Zalman-Polun in about two years and was shocked to read about their alleged involvement in a violent coup attempt.

“I had nothing to do with this and was not involved in any way,” said Ducey, who was in Eswatini on Monday, referring to reports in the Congolese media naming him among the attackers.

The alleged coup attempt began at the Kinshasa residence of Vital Kamerhe, a federal legislator and a candidate for speaker of the National Assembly of Congo. His guards killed the attackers, officials said.

Malanga, meanwhile, was live-streaming video from the presidential palace in which he is seen surrounded by several people in military uniforms wandering around in the middle of the night. He was later killed while resisting arrest, Congolese authorities said.

Congo officials have not commented on how the attackers were able to get inside.

Dino Mahtani, who worked in Congo for years as a journalist and then a political adviser to the U.N. between 2015-18, told the AP that Malanga had likely been tricked or betrayed.

“Its really difficult to imagine how 20, 30 guys thought that by storming the presidential palace when nobody is around at 4 a.m. in the morning could somehow take over the Congolese state,” he said. “It could be external plotters, but given his previous close relationship with at least one of Tshiskedi’s current military commanders, there’s some chance the plot was known about internally.”

Donari reported from Dakar, Senegal; Schoenbaum from West Jordan, Utah; and Biesecker from Washington.

A Record 6.9 Million People Have Been Displaced In Congo’s Growing Conflict, The U.N. Says

People displaced by conflict wait for the arrival of United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean Pierre Lacroix in Bunia, eastern Congo, Tuesday, Feb 22, 2022...(AP Photo/ Moses Sawasawa, File)

BY JUSTIN KABUMBA

GOMA, CONGO (AP) — A record 6.9 million people have been displaced by conflict across Congo, the United Nations migration agency said, making it one of the world’s largest displacement and humanitarian crises.

The decadeslong conflict has been the primary reason for displacement, the International Organization for Migration said Monday in a report based on data from Congo’s 26 provinces.

At least 80% of the displaced people live in eastern Congo’s provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika, which have long been overrun by dozens of armed groups seeking a share of the region’s gold and other resources. Some groups reportedly have been backed by Congo’s neighbors. Some groups are trying to protect their communities.

“The most recent escalation of the conflict has uprooted more people in less time like rarely seen before,” said IOM’s chief of mission in Congo, Fabien Sambussy.

More than two-thirds of those displaced, nearly 4.8 million people, live with host families, the IOM said, further squeezing already impoverished communities.

Frustration has been growing over the increase in violence. Earlier this month, the Congolese government directed the East African regional force, deployed just last year to help end the fighting, to leave the country by December. The government alleged a “lack of satisfactory results on the ground.”

The U.N. peacekeeping mission also has faced pressure to withdraw from Congo after more than two decades in the country.

Congo’s President Wants The Large UN Peacekeeping Mission To Start Leaving The Country This Year

Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, President of the Decratic Republic of Congo, addresses the 78th session of the United Nations, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

BY CARA ANNA

NAIROBI, KENYA (AP) — Congo’s president wants the world’s second largest United Nations peacekeeping force to move up its departure from the country, starting this December, saying it has failed to rein in conflicts in the country’s east.

President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi in an address at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders on Wednesday accused the 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission of being unable to confront the fighting in eastern Congo that is “tearing apart” the central African nation.

After a quarter-century of peacekeeping efforts, “it’s time for our country to take its destiny fully in hand” and become the leading security force in Congo, he said. How Congo’s estimated 100,000-strong military will adapt to the challenge is not clear.

Moving up the start of the peacekeeping mission’s “accelerated retreat” by a year, from December 2024, will help ease deadly tensions in the region, said the president, who is seeking a second term in a general election in December

Eastern Congo, far from the capital, has long been overrun by dozens of armed groups seeking a share of the region’s gold and other resources. Some have been quietly backed by Congo’s neighbors. U.N. experts have noted “substantial evidence” that Rwanda is supporting the resurgent M23 rebel group, which Rwanda has denied.



Thousands of civilians have suffered, and frustrated Congolese say that no one is protecting them from rebel attacks. Earlier this month, a Congolese military crackdown on planned protests against the U.N. mission killed at least 43 people and severely injured more than 50 in the eastern city of Goma. Two high-ranking officers were arrested.

Such protests have been common. A visit by Pope Francis to eastern Congo planned for early this year was canceled because of the worsening security situation there.

“In the past year, the political and security environment has deteriorated sharply, creating a severe humanitarian and protection crisis,” said a report last month by the U.N. secretary-general discussing options for the peacekeeping mission’s withdrawal.

As the U.N. mission withdraws, more pressure is likely to fall on a separate, much smaller East African regional force in eastern Congo which has seen citizen protests as well. Earlier this year, the Southern African Development Community also decided to deploy forces to eastern Congo.

US Measure Would Ban Products Containing Mineral Mined With Child Labor In Congo

FILE - Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., speaks during the House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on the administration foreign policy priorities on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, in Washington. A measure has been introduced in the U.S. House to ban imported products containing minerals critical to electric vehicle batteries but mined through child labor and other abusive conditions in Congo, where China has enormous mining stakes. (Ken Cedeno/Pool via AP, File)

BY TAIWO ADEBAYO

ABUJA, NIGERIA (AP) — A measure has been introduced in the U.S. House to ban imported products containing minerals critical to electric vehicle batteries but mined through child labor and other abusive conditions in Congo, where China has enormous mining stakes.

The bill targets China, which sponsor Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey says uses forced labor and exploits children to mine cobalt in the impoverished but resource-rich central African country.

Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, a key pillar of President Joe Biden’s climate plans. China controls the majority of the cobalt mines in Congo, strengthening Beijing’s position in the global supply chain for electric vehicles and other products.

“On the backs of trafficked workers and child laborers, the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting the vast cobalt resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo to fuel its economy and global agenda,” Smith’s office said in a statement following the bill’s introduction Friday.

The legislation comes amid strained ties between the U.S. and China. Biden referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator ” during a campaign fundraiser last month, leading to outcry from Beijing. That has followed tensions over a Chinese surveillance balloon that the U.S. government shot down, U.S.-led restrictions on China’s access to advanced computer chips, and the status and security of Taiwan.



But the Biden administration is looking to ease those tensions with a visit to China this week from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, following Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s two-day stop in Beijing last month.

China holds a 68% stake in Sicomines, the copper and cobalt joint venture with Congo’s state mining firm Gecamines, following a 2008 infrastructure-for-minerals deal, which Congo now is seeking to review over concerns it gets too little benefit from the arrangement.

Congo is also Africa’s top producer of copper, and lithium was recently found there — also key components of EV batteries.

The extraction of the minerals has been linked to child and exploitative labor, environmental abuses and safety risks. In a 2016 report, Amnesty International blamed Chinese firms for child labor in Congo’s cobalt mining and multinational tech firms for failing to address the negative human rights issue in their supply chains.

The U.S. legislation would prohibit importing “goods, wares, articles, or merchandise containing metals or minerals, in particular cobalt and lithium and their derivatives, mined, produced, smelted or processed, wholly or in part, by child labor or forced labor in the DRC,” Smith’s office said.

The measure also would require the president to identify and impose sanctions, including visa and transaction prohibitions, on foreign actors who facilitate and exploit child labor in Congo.

In a blow to American production, an Australian mining company that had been set to open the only cobalt mine in the U.S. halted construction on the Idaho project in March, citing falling cobalt prices fueled by competition from China and Congo.

Jervois Global CEO Bryce Crocker said the company expects to complete construction of the mine and commission it when cobalt prices recover.

The U.S. Defense Department has awarded the company $15 million for drilling and a feasibility study of a cobalt refinery in the U.S. Cobalt is considered a critical mineral by the U.S. government due to its use in the military and energy sectors.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington contributed.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Former Rebel Leader Is Named Congo’s New Defense Minister

FILE- Former militia leader Jean Pierre Bemba holds a press conference in the Congoleses capital Kinshasa Oct. 26, 2006. Bemba was appointed as Congo's defense minister Thursday March 23, 2023, amid a cabinet reshuffle. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, file)

BY JEAN-YVES KAMALE

KINSHASA, CONGO (AP) — Congo’s former rebel leader jailed by the International Criminal Court, Jean-Pierre Bemba, has been appointed Congo’s Defense Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in a Cabinet reshuffle.

Bemba’s appointment to the key positions was announced Thursday evening on state television by President Felix Tshisekedi’s spokeswoman. Bemba’s promotion and other Cabinet appointments come less than a year ahead of Congo’s presidential elections.

Congo’s former vice president between 2003 and 2006, Bemba was later imprisoned by the ICC for more than a decade, accused of murders, rapes and pillaging committed by his Movement for the Liberation of Congo forces in the neighboring country of Central African Republic. In a surprising ruling, he was acquitted by the ICC in 2018. Bemba has always maintained his innocence.

Bemba’s return to prominent government positions comes nine months ahead of Congo’s presidential elections scheduled for December. Bemba’s political comeback was likely decided to help Tshisekedi win votes in Congo’s war-torn northeast, where Bemba’s rebel group was popular in the 1990s and 2000s, say analysts.


“This is clearly a pre-election reshuffle and Jean-Pierre Bemba has been appointed to bring his supporters in line to rally behind the president ahead of the race,” said Benjamin Hunter, Africa analyst for Verisk Maplecroft, a risk assessment firm.

“Despite Bemba’s previous imprisonment by the ICC, he is a political heavyweight with the patronage networks and contact book to help Tshisekedi’s election campaign,” he said.

Conflict in eastern Congo has been simmering for decades with more than 120 armed groups fighting for power, land, resources and some to defend their communities. Tshisekedi came to office in 2019 promising to stem Congo’s instability and violence, but it’s only increased.

Other new government postings in the Cabinet reshuffle include Tshisekedi’s former chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, who was named the minister of the economy. Kamerhe was sentenced to 20 years in prison but acquitted last year. Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi, a former warlord in Ituri province was appointed minister of state for national integration.

“Shame For WHO:” Victim Of Sex Misconduct Slams UN Response

FILE - In this Anifa stands in her home in the eastern Congo town of Goma on Friday, March 5, 2021. A woman victimized by a World Health Organization doctor during a recent Ebola outbreak in Congo said she is shocked that no senior officials were punished for the sexual abuse and exploitation claims affecting dozens of women in the conflict-ridden country. (AP Photo/Kudra Maliro, File)

BY AL-HADJI KUDRA MALIRO AND MARIA CHENG

KAMPALA, UGANDA (AP) — A woman victimized by a World Health Organization doctor during a recent Ebola outbreak in Congo said she is shocked that no senior officials were punished for the sexual abuse and exploitation claims involving dozens of women in the conflict-ridden country.

On Monday, the AP reported on a confidential U.N. report that excused senior staffers for their mishandling of the case due to a “loophole” in how WHO defines victims of such behavior.

Anifa, a young Congolese woman who worked at an Ebola treatment center in Beni during the outbreak, said she could not understand WHO’s seeming excusal of misconduct.

“It is a shame for WHO to give work to the kinds of men who do not respect women,” she said, declining to share her full name, for fear it could hurt her future job prospects. Anifa said she had been offered a job by a WHO doctor in exchange for sex during the Ebola epidemic, but refused. The AP does not identify victims of sexual abuse.

“Perhaps WHO does not consider us because we are Africans?” she asked. “As long as I am alive, I will hate the entire World Health Organization until (the perpetrators) are charged and punished.”

Paula Donovan, co-leader of the Code Blue campaign, which seeks to hold the U.N. accountable for sexual offenses, said WHO member countries looked the other way on the agency’s sexual misconduct charges because they could not afford to weaken the institution during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Countries could not go after WHO because it was doing what the U.S. and other rich countries would not do during COVID, which is try to figure out how to get vaccines to the poor.”

She said donor countries had likely made a disturbing calculation about the costs of responding to global health crises.

“It is very depressing, but officials have essentially concluded this is the price that has to be paid, that some women are going to be sexually exploited.”

The U.N. report was focused on a case first reported by the AP in May 2021, involving Dr. Jean-Paul Ngandu, who worked on the Ebola response in northeastern Congo in 2019. Shortly after his arrival, Ngandu met a young woman at a local restaurant. The two had sex later that evening, but the relationship soured, and the woman and her aunt complained to WHO that Ngandu had impregnated her.

AP obtained a copy of a notarized agreement between Ngandu and the woman, signed by two WHO staffers, in which he agreed to cover her health care costs and buy her land.

After concerns about the Ngandu case were raised to WHO’s Geneva headquarters, “a decision was made not to investigate the complaint on the basis that it did not violate WHO’s (sexual exploitation and abuse) policy,” the U.N. report said. The report said this was because the woman was not a “beneficiary” of WHO, meaning she didn’t receive any humanitarian or emergency aid, and thus, did not qualify as a victim under WHO policy.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said repeatedly he is “outraged” by reports of sexual misconduct. But to date, no senior staffers linked to the sexual abuse allegations in Congo’s 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak — where more than 80 workers under WHO’s direction were found to have abused or exploited women — have been fired.

Some global health experts were unconvinced by Tedros’ professed indignation.

“It undermines the complete integrity of WHO that no one has lost their job over this,” said Sophie Harman, a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University in London. “If WHO is serious about gender equality, then it is time for Tedros to go.”

WHO’s director of communications insisted the agency was committed to addressing sexual misconduct.

“WHO is focused on continuing the deep and broad strengthening of our policies and practices, staffing, training and resourcing to prevent sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment,” said Gabriella Stern.

After the Congo allegations became public, WHO created a new department to address sexual exploitation, headed by Dr. Gaya Gamhewage. In her interview with U.N. investigators, Gamhewage said that prior to being appointed, she had no knowledge of the WHO’s sexual misconduct policies and had not even read them.

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Cheng reported from London. Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

Pope Consoles Congolese Victims: ‘Your Pain Is My Pain’

Pope Francis meets with victims of violence in eastern Congo, at the Apostolic Nunciature in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. Francis is in Congo and South Sudan for a six-day trip, hoping to bring comfort and encouragement to two countries that have been riven by poverty, conflicts and what he calls a "colonialist mentality" that has exploited Africa for centuries. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, CHRISTINA MALKIA AND JEAN-YVES KAMALE

KINSHASA, CONGO (AP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Congo’s people to forgive those who committed “inhuman violence” against them, celebrating a Mass for 1 million people and then hearing firsthand of the atrocities some of them have endured: a teenage girl “raped like an animal” for months; a young man who watched as his father was decapitated; a former sex slave who was forced into cannibalism.

Congolese from the country’s violence-wracked east traveled to the capital of Kinshasa to tell the pope of the horrific violence they suffered for years as rebel groups sought to gain territory in the mineral-rich region through attacks that have forced more than 5 million people to flee their homes.

Francis sat in silence as victim after victim came forward to tell their stories. He watched as they offered up at the foot of a crucifix a symbol of their pain: the machete used to maim and kill, or the straw bed mat on which they had been raped. When they knelt in front of him for a blessing, Francis placed his hand on their heads, or on the stumps of the arms that remained.

“Your tears are my tears; your pain is my pain,” Francis told them. “To every family that grieves or is displaced by the burning of villages and other war crimes, to the survivors of sexual violence and to every injured child and adult, I say: I am with you; I want to bring you God’s caress.”

The intimate encounter at the Vatican Embassy in Kinshasa was an extraordinary moment of a pastor seeking to console his flock, and of a pope seeking to shine a spotlight on what Francis has called a “forgotten genocide” that barely makes the news. Despite being home to one of the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation in the world, eastern Congo has been mired in violence since the early 1990s as rebels and miliitas vie for control of mineral-rich territory.

“What a scandal and what hypocrisy, as people are being raped and killed, while the commerce that causes this violence and death continues to flourish!” Francis said of the foreign powers and extraction industries that are exploiting Congo’s east. “Enough!”

Francis had originally planned to visit the eastern province of North Kivu, where rebel groups have intensified attacks in the past year, when his trip was initially scheduled for July.

But after the trip was rescheduled, the Vatican had to cancel the visit to Goma due to the fighting that has forced some 5.7 million people to flee their homes, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Congo, where already some 26.4 million people face hunger, according to the World Food Program.

Instead, residents of the east came to Francis, and their testimony was gut-wrenching.

Ladislas Kambale Kombi, from the Beni area of eastern North Kivu province, told Francis of watching as men in military uniforms decapitated his father, placed his head in a basket and then took off with his mother, whom he never saw again.

“At night, I cannot sleep,” he said. “It is hard to understand such wickedness, such near-animal-like brutality.”

Bijoux Makumbi Kamala, 17, told of being kidnapped in 2020 by rebels in Walikale, in North Kivu province as she went to fetch water. Speaking through a translator, she said she was raped daily by the commander “like an animal,” until she escaped after 19 months.

“It was useless to scream, because no one could hear me or come to my rescue,” she said, adding that she gave birth to twin girls “who will never know their father” and found consolation through services offered by the Catholic Church.

The Associated Press usually does not identify victims of sexual violence, but those who told their stories to Francis gave their names in public at the start of their testimony.

Emelda M’karhungulu, from a village near Bukavu in Congo’s South Kivu province, spoke through a translator of having been kept as a sexual slave for three months at age 16 by armed men who invaded her village in 2005. She said she was raped daily by five to 10 men who then forced their captives to eat the flesh of the men they had killed, mixed with animal meat and maize paste.

“That was our food each day; whoever refused they would behead and would feed them to us,” she said. M’karhungulu said she eventually escaped one day when fetching water.

While forced cannibalism is not known to be widespread, the United Nations and human rights groups documented how it was used as a weapon of war in the early 2000s in parts of eastern Congo.

A statement prepared months ago by Désiré Dhetsina was read aloud on his behalf; Dhetsina disappeared after surviving an attack Feb. 1, 2022, on a camp for internally displaced people in Ituri province, on Congo’s northeastern border with Uganda.

“I saw savagery: People carved up like meat in a butcher shop; women disemboweled, men decapitated,” Dhetsina reported. As his story was read to Francis, two woman stood up in front of the pope and raised into the air the stumps that remained of their mutilated arms.

Francis condemned the violence and urged the Congolese victims to use their pain for good, to sow peace and reconciliation. It was a message he also delivered earlier in the day at a Mass to the throngs at Kinshasa’s Ndolo airport, where he cited the example of Christ who forgave those who betrayed him.

“He showed them his wounds because forgiveness is born from wounds,” Francis said. “It is born when our wounds do not leave scars of hatred, but become the means by which we make room for others and accept their weaknesses. Our weakness becomes an opportunity, and forgiveness becomes the path to peace.”

Roughly half of Congo’s 105 million people are Catholic, according to the Vatican, which also estimated that 1 million people were on hand for Francis’ Mass, citing local organizers.

Among the faithful was Clément Konde, who traveled from Kisantu, a town in the province of Central Kongo, more than 150 kilometers (95 miles) from Kinshasa. He planned to participate in all of Francis’ events this week before the pontiff heads to South Sudan, the second leg of his African journey.

“To my children and to the children who stayed in my city, I will bring them the message of the Holy Father, the message of peace and reconciliation,” Konde said.

This story has been updated to correct the last name of one person quoted. It is Konde, not L’onde.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope’s Africa Trip Spotlights Conflict, And Church’s Future

Morning service concludes in the annex of the Cathedral Notre Dame du Congo in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sunday Jan. 29, 2023. The cathedral is being prepared for Pope Francis' visit to Congo and South Sudan for a six-day trip starting Jan, 31, hoping to bring comfort and encouragement to two countries that have been riven by poverty, conflicts and what he calls a "colonialist mentality" that has exploited Africa for centuries. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, JEAN-YVES KAMALE AND NQOBILE NTSHANGASE

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is opening a six-day visit to Congo and South Sudan on Tuesday, aiming to bring a message of peace to two countries riven by poverty, conflict and what Francis has called a lingering “colonialist mentality” that still considers Africa ripe for exploitation.

Aid groups are hoping Francis’ trip will shine a spotlight on two of the world’s forgotten conflicts and rekindle international attention on some of Africa’s worst humanitarian crises, amid donor fatigue and new aid priorities in Ukraine.

But Francis’ trip will also bring him face-to-face with the future of the Catholic Church: Africa is one of the only places in the world where the Catholic flock is growing, in terms of practicing faithful as well as fresh vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

That makes his trip, his fifth to the African continent in his 10-year pontificate, all the more important as Francis seeks to make his mark on reshaping the church as a “field hospital for wounded souls” where all are welcome and poor people have a special pride of place.

“Yes, Africa is in turmoil and is also suffering from the invasion of exploiters,” Francis told The Associated Press in an interview last week. But he said the church can also learn from the continent and its people.

“We need to listen to their culture: dialogue, learn, talk, promote,” Francis said, suggesting that his message would differ from the scolding tone St. John Paul II used in 1980 and 1985 when he reminded Congolese priests and bishops of the need to stick to their celibacy vows.


Congo, Francis’ first stop, stands out as the African country with most Catholics hands down: Half of its 105 million people are Catholic, the country counts more than 6,000 priests, 10,000 nuns and more than 4,000 seminarians — 3.6% of the global total of young men studying for the priesthood.

Congolese faithful were flocking to Kinshasa for Francis’ main event, a Mass on Wednesday at Ndolo airport that is expected to draw as many as 2 million people in one of the biggest gatherings of its kind in Congo and one of Francis’ biggest Masses ever.

“There are people who chartered planes to come here because there were so many of them!” marveled Inniance Mukania, who travelled to Kinshasa from the Kolwezi diocese in southern Congo.

On the eve of the pope’s visit, President Felix Tshisekedi met with foreign diplomats in Kinshasa and told them the visit was a sign of solidarity “particularly with the battered populations of the eastern part of the country, prey to acts of violence and intolerance that you are witnessing.”

Jesus-Noel Sheke, technical coordinator of the organizing committee for the papal visit, said nearly everything was ready at Ndolo, where organizers have arranged for 22 giant screens to carry the service live.

“There are only a few decorations left,” he told journalists of the preparations over the weekend. “They will be done the day before.”

The trip was originally scheduled for July, but was postponed because of Francis’ knee problems. It was also supposed to have included a stop in Goma, in eastern Congo, but the surrounding North Kivu region has been plagued by intense fighting between government troops and the M23 rebel group, as well as attacks by militants linked to the Islamic State group.

The fighting has displaced some 5.7 million people, a fifth of them last year alone, according to the World Food Program.

Instead, Francis will meet with a delegation of people from the east who will travel to Kinshasa for a private encounter at the Vatican embassy. The plan calls for them to participate in a ceremony jointly committing to forgive their assailants.

While the people of Goma were saddened that Francis won’t be visiting the east, “we hope with the visit that the pope can bring a message of peace to the people of Congo who need it,” said Providence Bireke, a Goma-based manager with AVSI, an Italian aid group active in the area.

The second leg of Francis’ trip will bring him to South Sudan, the world’s youngest country where continued fighting has hampered implementation of a 2018 peace deal to end a civil war. Francis first voiced his hope of visiting the majority Christian country in 2017, but security concerns prevented a visit and only contributed to worsening a humanitarian crisis that has displaced more than 2 million people.

The South Sudan stop also marks a novelty in the history of papal travel, in that Francis will be joined on the ground by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields.

The aim of the three-way visit is to show a united Christian commitment to helping South Sudan make progress on the implementation of the 2018 accord. Francis presided over a similar joint initiative in 2019 in the Vatican when he famously got down on hands and knees and kissed the feet of South Sudan’s rival leaders, begging them to make peace.

Since then, progress on implementing the accord — in particular creating a unified army comprised of government forces and opposition fighters — has been “painfully slow,” said Paolo Impagliazzo of the Sant’Egidio Community, which has spearheaded an initiative to bring the groups that didn’t sign onto the 2018 accord into the process.

“The visit will bring hope to the people,” Impagliazzo said in an interview in Rome. “And I believe the visit will strengthen the churches — the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, the local church — that are playing a critical role in bringing about peace and dialogue in South Sudan.”

One area of particular concern remains the widespread availability of firearms among the civilian population, which has led to continued fighting in areas as cattle herders seek more land or faction leaders seek to gain more territory, he said.

The Small Arms Survey estimated in 2017 that there were some 1.2 million firearms in the possession of South Sudanese civilians, or 1 for every 10 people. The estimate was believed low and pales in comparison to the number of per capita firearms in Europe or the U.S., but remains an outstanding issue that “will not go ahead until we have the possibility to have a unified army,” Impagliazzo said.

Francis has long denounced the weapons industry, calling traffickers “merchants of death.” In the AP interview, he repeated his condemnation.

“The world is obsessed with having weapons,” Francis said. “Instead of making the effort to help us live, we make the effort to help us kill.”

Kamale and Ntshangase reported from Kinshasa, Congo. Sam Mednick contributed from Dakar, Senegal.

‘He’s Close To Us’: Wheelchair Users In Africa Await Pope

Paul Mitemberezi, a market vendor who has been disabled since he was 3 because of polio, leave his house for work, in Goma, democratic Republic of Congo, Tuesday Jan. 17, 2023. When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan Jan. 31, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross. Watching from their wheelchairs, they will relate to the way he uses his. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

BY JUSTIN KABUMBA, DENG MACHOL AND CARA ANNA

GOMA, CONGO (AP) — When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross. Watching from their wheelchairs, they will relate to the way he uses his.

The pope, who began using a wheelchair last year, is visiting two countries where years of conflict have disabled many, and yet they are among the world’s most difficult places to find accessibility and understanding. His visit is heartening Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

“We know that it’s a suffering, but it also comforts us to see a grand personality like the pope using a wheelchair,” said Paul Mitemberezi, a market vendor in Goma, at the heart of the eastern Congo region threatened by dozens of armed groups. “Sometimes it gives us the courage to hope that this isn’t the end of the world and one can survive.”

Mitemberezi, a Catholic and a father, has been disabled since he was 3 because of polio. He works to support his family because he can’t imagine a life of begging. On the way to market, his three-wheeled chair crunches the stones of unpaved roads. Without a ramp at home, he must leave the brightly painted vehicle outdoors, at risk of theft.

Every morning, before he leaves for basketball practice, he makes sure the chair’s still there before crawling out his front door. “It is my legs, which helps me to live,” he said. He applies a bicycle pump to the wheels and is off, weaving through traffic of motorcycles and trucks.


Pope Francis is still adjusting to a life that Mitemberezi has long accepted. The pope was first seen publicly in a wheelchair in May, with an aide pushing it. The pope, at age 86, never propels himself. Sometimes he walks with a cane, but he uses the chair for longer distances and has a wheelchair lift to get on and off planes.

Francis has lamented how today’s “throwaway culture” wrongly marginalizes disabled people. He makes it a point to visit places serving them during his foreign trips, and routinely spends time greeting wheelchair users at the end of his general audiences.

“No disability — temporary, acquired or permanent — can change the fact that we are all children of the one Father and enjoy the same dignity,” Francis wrote in his annual message for the U.N. International Day of Persons with Disabilities in December. He said people with different abilities enrich the church and teach it to be more humane.

Such messages are warmly awaited by wheelchair users in South Sudan, where a five-year civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people. As in Congo, data is lacking on just how many people are disabled by conflict or other means.

While the road leading to the Vatican’s embassy in the South Sudan capital, Juba, was paved by city authorities this month for ease of travel, residents who use wheelchairs said they have long gone without easy access to schools, health centers, toilets and other public facilities.

South Sudan, unlike Congo, is yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Both countries, however, face vast challenges including underfunded health systems, poor infrastructure and conflicts that leave many disabled people vulnerable as others flee. Even displacement camps and shelters often are not accessible, the United Nations has said, and wheelchairs are not always available.

Discrimination is another problem. “People see those who get around using a wheelchair as useless,” said James Moses, who leads a local organization in South Sudan for disabled people and uses crutches after being wounded by a land mine.

He and others called on South Sudan’s government to give them special consideration during the pope’s visit, and they hope that Francis will advocate for them. “He’s close to us,” said Susan Samson, a wheelchair user and mother.

They hope they will have a chance to greet the pope at the airport with congratulatory messages and flowers. ”Put us in front so the pope will see us,” urged wheelchair user Seme Lado Michael.

The Vatican’s ambassador to Congo, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, said he believed the sight of a wheelchair-using pope could be a powerful teaching moment in a culture where disabilities are often viewed with suspicion and superstition.

Families often abandon their disabled children, he said.

Seeing someone like the pope suffer should make Francis more approachable for people during his visit, Balestrero said. “They identify, in a way, even more with him.”

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Machol reported from Juba, South Sudan. Anna reported from Nairobi, Kenya. Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Fighting Intensifies In Eastern Congo, Displacing Hundreds

Congo's M23 Rebels

BY JUSTIN KABUMBA AND SAM MEDNICK

GOMA, CONGO (AP) — Fighting intensified around a town in eastern Congo Thursday as a rebel group seeking to expand the territory it controls increased pressure on government troops defending it, forcing hundreds of civilians to flee their homes.

By evening it was unclear who controlled Kitchanga in North Kivu province. Videos on social media appeared to show fighters in the M23 group celebrating and claiming they’d captured the town. It was impossible to independently verify their authenticity.

Congo for months has accused neighboring Rwanda of supporting the M23 group — whose origins lie in the region’s ethnic fighting — and powerful voices in the West have openly agreed. Rwanda denies backing the group, which is one of dozens operating in mineral-rich eastern Congo.

At a Nov. 23 summit in Angola, which included Congo’s president and Rwanda’s foreign minister, regional leaders called for a cease-fire in eastern Congo to be followed by a withdrawal of rebels from major towns under M23 control.

The group said it would leave some of the occupied territories before Jan. 15, but some areas remain under its control and it’s seeking to capture others from government forces. M23 has been accused by the United Nations and rights groups of atrocities against civilians.

Kitchanga is a key town as it sits on the last open route between North Kivu’s main economic hubs of Goma and Butembo. The others were cut off due to the fighting.


Many of Kitchanga’s inhabitants fled Thursday’s violence.

“We have just been through the war in Kitchanga, we saw M23 killing people, we were afraid, that’s why we fled so we wouldn’t die too,” said Angelique Mukeshimana. The mother of four went to a makeshift displacement site on the outskirts of Goma, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) away leaving all her belongings behind.

The fighting comes days before Pope Francis is due in Congo’s capital Kinshasa for a three-day visit. The trip was originally supposed to include a stop in the east, however the Vatican scrapped that amid the rising violence.

M23′s political spokesman, Lawrence Kanyuka, in a statement Thursday accused government troops of attacking civilians in Kitchanga and elsewehere, and said the rebel group was “obliged to intervene and stop another genocide.”

A spokesperson for a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo said more than 500 civilians have taken refuge in and around the U.N. peacekeeping base in Kitchanga, where they’ve been given tents, food, water and first aid.

“The M23 must cease all hostilities and withdraw from the occupied areas,” Ndeye Khady Lo said.

Analysts say the rebel group’s drive to expand has devastating consequences for civilians.

“If reports that the group has taken control of Kitchanga ... are true, this is yet another indication of the group’s ongoing territorial ambitions and apparent unwillingness to withdraw,” said Daniel Levine-Spound, a researcher at the Center for Civilians in Conflict.

“The group’s continued westward expansion also raises meaningful fears that M23 could seek to fully encircle Goma. Sustained international pressure, including on M23’s backers, will be critical in halting the group’s advance,” he said.

Largely comprised of Congolese ethnic Tutsis, M23 rose to prominence 10 years ago when it seized Goma on the border with Rwanda. It’s part of long line of rebel groups linked with Rwanda since the 1990s when the country sought out ethnic Hutu militias, who had fled to Congo after killing Rwandan Tutsis during the genocide.

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Mednick reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press reporter Christina Malkia contributed from Kinshasa, Congo.