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Tag: Congo

  • Congo-Brazzaville’s opposition leader returns

    Congo-Brazzaville’s jailed opposition leader Jean-Marie Mokoko has returned to the country a month after he was taken for treatment in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

    Mokoko was serving a 20-year jail term when he became sick and was flown to Ankara.

    His lawyer Yvon Eric Ibouanga told AFP news agency he was allowed to see the politician after he returned to the country and that he was in “good shape”.

    The lawyer said they were working on a request for him to be freed.

    Mokoko was charged with undermining state security and illegal possession of weapons and ammunition and imprisoned in 2019.

    The former chief of staff of the armed forces finished third in the 2016 presidential elections. Denis Sassou Nguesso was controversially declared winner.

    Source: bbc.com

  • DR Congo president announces lifting of virus restrictions

    The Democratic Republic of Congo has lifted the “state of health emergency” introduced on March 24 to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country.

    In a televised address on Tuesday, president Felix Tshisekedi announced that from July 22, shops, banks, restaurants, cafés, bars and businesses will resume in accordance with health measures.

    Schools, universities and other educational establishments will reopen on 3 August, while places of worship, stadiums, airports and international borders will be reopened from 15 August.

    He, however, sounded a note of caution that the end of the state of emergency does not mean the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in the DRC.

    He urged Congolese to respect all health measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 which include the wearing of masks in public places, hand washing and the checking of temperatures.

    The Democratic Republic of Congo has recorded 8,534 cases since March 10, including 196 deaths and 4,528 recoveries.

    Source: africannews.com

  • Félicien Kabuga: Rwanda genocide suspect arrested in France

    The UN children’s agency, Unicef, says a reduction in vaccination rates in the Democratic Republic of Congo could erase the gains made from immunisation over the past two years.

    Unicef said vaccinations were already declining at the beginning of this year, and that the effects of coronavirus will make it worse.

    Health workers lack equipment to protect themselves or the children from Covid-19, and parents are afraid to bring them to vaccination centres.

    Hundreds of thousands of children have not received polio, measles, yellow fever and other vaccines.

    DR Congo might lose its polio-free status and there could be a resurgence of other deadly diseases.

    The country has been affected by decades of conflict and an Ebola epidemic.

    Unicef is worried that the effects of coronavirus could now push it over the edge.

    Source: bbc.com

  • Lightning kills 20 people during Congos virus lockdown

    Some 20 people were killed by a lightning strike on high-voltage power lines in Congo Brazzaville, the authorities say.

    The incident happened on the first day of a lockdown in the capital, Brazzaville, to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.

    So far 22 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in the country including two deaths.

    The mayor of Kintele district, Stella Mensah Saddou Nguesso, said people were electrocuted by the falling cables.

    Eyewitnesses said one line fell on a house, setting it on fire and killing those inside.

    The other cable struck a pool of water in a courtyard, electrocuting the neighbours.

    Heavy rain has been falling in Kintele for several hours.

    Some of the dead and injured were rushed to hospital by people in private vehicles as ambulances could not cope with the numbers.

     

    Source: BBC 

  • Ebola ’emergency status’ extended in DR Congo

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has extended by three months the designation of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a global health emergency.

    WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said the potential remained for a much larger epidemic as long as there was a single case of the disease in an area as insecure as eastern DR Congo.

    The outbreak was declared a global health emergency in July 2019 after a patient died in the provincial capital Goma – the first case in a major city.

    More than 2,300 people have died since the outbreak began in 2018.

    Source: bbc.com

  • WHO sounds alarm on Ebola due to Congo insecurity

    About 360 people are at potential risk of Ebola after contact with an infected person in eastern Congo yet many of them are out of reach due to clashes and insecurity, the World Health Organization said on Friday (November 22).

    Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, urged the government and all sides to enable aid workers to access several areas where the deadly virus may be spreading.

    Islamist militiamen killed at least 19 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, stepping up attacks on civilians in response to a military campaign against them in border areas with Uganda, local officials said on Wednesday.

    Read:Uganda to send back Congolese Ebola patient as deaths exceed 2,000

    The assailants, who the officials said belong to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group, burned down a Catholic church near the city of Oicha.

    Ryan said that although only 7 cases of Ebola were recorded in the past week, it was unable to stamp out the deadly virus due to insecurity.

    “The difficulty we collectively face at the moment is just when we need that unlimited and unfettered access to communities we have lost that access in key areas,” he told a news briefing.

    Spread of the virus

    “This is a very dangerous and alarming development,” he said.

    Read:Measles kills nearly 5,000 in DR Congo

    A male driver died of Ebola in Oicha, North Kivu province, after visiting three health care centres, Ryan said, adding that many other drivers had handled the body at the funeral.

    “That one case has generated over 360 contacts which is a large number of contacts for any case. We know that person was highly infectious at the moment of death. That is why we are so concerned,” Ryan said.

    At least 62 of the 200 contacts in Oicha were deemed at “extreme high risk”, he said, but aid workers had only located 19 of them. About 159 had fled to Kalunguta where most were being monitored.

    There have been 3,298 Ebola cases including 2,195 deaths since the outbreak was declared in August 2018, Ryan said.

    “By the time this Ebola outbreak in Congo is over the international community will probably have spent $1 billion.”

    Source: africanews.com

  • Suspected Islamist militants kill 19, burn church in eastern DR Congo

    Islamist militiamen killed at least 19 people overnight in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, stepping up attacks on civilians in response to a military campaign against them in border areas with Uganda, local officials said on Wednesday.

    The assailants, who the officials said belong to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamist group, also kidnapped several people and torched a Catholic church during two separate attacks about 35 km (22 miles) apart.

    Read:DR Congo tests 12 more patients for Ebola

    The Congolese army began an offensive three weeks ago near the Ugandan border. The ADF has been operating there for more than two decades and is one of dozens of rebel groups active in the mineral-rich areas where civil wars resulted in millions of deaths around the turn of the century.

    Several previous ADF attacks have been claimed by Islamic State, but the extent of their relationship remains unclear.

    Army spokesman Mak Hazukay said the ADF killed at least seven people on the outskirts of the city of Beni, adding that two soldiers were wounded and several people were missing.

    Read:DR Congo launches attacks against militias

    Donat Kibwana, the administrator of Beni territory, said ADF fighters killed another 12 people in the village of Mavete, where they also burned a church and a pharmacy and kidnapped several others.

    At least 70 people have been killed since the army campaign began, according to the Kivu Security Tracker, a research initiative that maps unrest in the region.

    Violence by the ADF and other militias has also hindered efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people since last year.

    Source: af.reuters.com

  • More than a dozen killed as unlicensed mine collapses in DRC

    More than a dozen people have been killed after an unlicensed gold mine collapsed in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the government said.

    The accident happened at Kampene, some 180km (110 miles) south of Kindu town, Steve Mbikayi, minister of national solidarity and humanitarian action, said on Wednesday.

    “Fourteen dead, three hospitalised with serious injuries. Search continuing,” Mbikayi wrote on Twitter, giving a provisional toll.

    Read:Dozens feared dead in DR Congo boat accident

    A civil society campaigner, Justin Kyanga Asumani, also giving a preliminary toll, said “15 bodies have been recovered, including two women”.

    He was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying the accident happened at about 2pm local time, when “dozens of people, including children and pregnant women” were at work on the site.

    The accident brought renewed attention to the dangers plaguing the resource-rich DRC’s informal mining sector, which has a poor safety record and a history of frequent deadly accidents.

    Read:Uganda to send back Congolese Ebola patient as deaths exceed 2,000

    In June, more than 40 people died at a copper concession in Kolwezi, in southeastern DRC, that was operated by Kamoto Copper Company, a subsidiary of Swiss giant Glencore.

    Kyanga said the unlicensed mine in Kampene had been operating for about 10 years, a situation that underscored “the lack of oversight and the inactivity by state bodies”.

    Source: aljazeera.com

  • DR Congo’s ex-Ebola minister ‘mismanaged $4.3m’

    Lawyers for the former health minister in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Oly Ilunga, say the authorities have accused him of mismanaging $4.3m (£3.4m) from money allocated to the fight against the Ebola virus.

    But they have stressed that he denies wrongdoing, saying almost half the money in question was spent after he had resigned in July.

    Read:Congo police detain former health minister in Ebola probe

    A statement says that there is documentation to prove that the rest of the money was spent exclusively on combating the virus.

    Dr Ilunga was arrested on Saturday. He has denied police allegations that he was trying to flee DR Congo.

    Read:DR Congo tests 12 more patients for Ebola

    When Dr Ilunga resigned as minister he criticised the decision to remove him as head of the Ebola response team and to replace him with a committee, which he said had interfered with his work.

    He also criticised the World Health Organization’s plan to use an unlicensed vaccine against Ebola.

    Source: bbc.com