Republic of Congo

KINSHASA, July 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A notorious militia has killed nearly 800 civilians in eastern DR Congo since the start of last year, the UN said, adding that the attacks may amount to crimes against humanity.

The ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) has committed “widespread, systematic and extremely brutal” rights abuses, according to a report by the UN’s Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) in DR Congo.

Between Jan 1 last year and Jan 1 this year, the report documented the killing of 496 civilians — 142 women, 25 children and 329 men.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo’s prime minister protested on Sunday over the brief arrest of the justice minister, saying the coalition government could resign over the issue and calling on the president to guarantee cabinet members’ legal protections.

Justice Minister Celestin Tunda was detained by police on Saturday evening and released following several hours of questioning by prosecutors at the court of cassation, triggering a political storm within the ruling coalition.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - The second-largest Ebola outbreak on record is over after nearly two years and more than 2,200 deaths, Democratic Republic of Congo said on Thursday, even as a separate flare-up of the virus continued elsewhere in the country.

Despite effective vaccines and treatments that dramatically boosted survival rates when administered early, the outbreak dragged on as first responders struggled to gain access to virus hotspots in Congo’s restive eastern borderlands.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Fourteen members of a religious sect aiming to revive the pre-colonial Kongo kingdom died during clashes with the police and locals in western Democratic Republic of Congo, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

The Bundu dia Mayala (BDM) sect wants to restore the kingdom that thrived for centuries around the mouth of the Congo River and includes portions of Congo, Congo Republic, Angola and Gabon.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo recorded a second Ebola death in days following more than seven weeks without a new case, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.

Congo had been due on Sunday to mark an end to the second-deadliest outbreak of the virus on record until a case was confirmed on Friday in the eastern city of Beni.

The outbreak has killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018 in an area of the country where militia violence hobbled efforts to contain it.

BENI, Congo (AP) — Congo has been battling an Ebola outbreak that has killed thousands of people for more than 18 months, and now it must also face a new scourge: the coronavirus pandemic.

Ebola has left those living in the country’s east weary and fearful, and, just as they were preparing to declare an end to the outbreak, a new case popped up. Now, they will now have to manage both threats at once.

31 December 2019; AFP: Militants killed 20 people, most of them hacked to death, in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern Beni region in the latest attack by an armed group blamed for massacres that have sparked angry protests.

Local officials said fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist-militia originally from neighbouring Uganda, on Sunday attacked Apetina-Sana west of Oicha, the chief administrative town in Beni region.

28 November 2019; AFP: Measles has killed more than 5,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo since January -- more than double the toll in the country's Ebola epidemic -- the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

"The DRC (measles) outbreak is the largest outbreak worldwide. It is one of the largest that we have seen," Kate O'Brien, director of the WHO's immunisation department, told reporters in Geneva.

BENI, Congo (AP) — Ebola responders are on lockdown in the eastern Congo city of Beni after angry residents attacked a United Nations base to protest repeated rebel assaults, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. At least four protesters were killed, a local official said.

Every day that health workers don’t have full access to Ebola-affected areas is a “tragedy” that prolongs the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter.

GOMA, Congo (AP) — A plane carrying at least 17 passengers crashed Sunday on takeoff in Congo’s eastern city of Goma, killing those on board, officials said, and possibly people on the ground.

The aircraft crashed into residential homes near Goma’s airport in the North Kivu province.