Beni, DR Congo | AFP | Nine civilians were killed on Sunday in the eastern DR Congo region of Beni in another attack blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia, according to local sources. The attackers fled after a gunfight with army troops, according to Anthony Mualushayi, a regional …
Read More »Coronavirus fails to halt conflict in DRC’s powder-keg east
Goma, DR Congo | AFP | Coronavirus has swiftly gained status as the world’s No. 1 threat but in eastern DR Congo, one of Africa’s most volatile regions, militia killings and ethnic violence are an older and — for now — far greater source of dread. Some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 …
Read More »DRC officials deny Corona-virus figures manipulated
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | Government officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have denied any manipulation of its figures for coronavirus cases and deaths. The controversy came as health officials announced DR Congo’s latest COVID-19 figures which stand at 63 deaths from 2,025 cases, most of them in …
Read More »Coronavirus creeps along East Africa’s trucking corridors
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Every day hundreds of trucks fan out from East Africa’s main ports in Kenya and Tanzania carrying cargo to the landlocked hinterland, and fears are rising they are becoming a major vector for the coronavirus. Their drivers gather at truckstops, weighbridges and customs points, socialising …
Read More »DR Congo ‘prepared’ to take part in COVID-19 vaccine testing
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The Democratic Republic of Congo is prepared to take part in testing of any future vaccine against the coronavirus, the head of the country’s taskforce against the pandemic said on Friday. “We’ve been chosen to conduct these tests,” said the head of the national …
Read More »DRC’s first coronavirus case confirmed in Kinshasa
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | The DR Congo confirmed its first coronavirus case in the capital Kinshasa, the third most populous city in Africa, the health ministry said on Tuesday. The patient is a Belgian citizen who has been in the country for several days, Health Minister Eteni …
Read More »DRC hopes to declare end to Ebola outbreak next month
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | DR Congo health officials said Monday they were “keeping fingers crossed” to declare a deadly 19-month Ebola epidemic over next month, while monitoring former patients for signs of the virus. While the world’s attention has been focused on the coronavirus, the last patient under …
Read More »Rwanda backs DRC army crackdown on Hutu rebels
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | Rwanda on Monday backed DR Congo’s military crackdown on Hutu rebels, who accuse the neighbouring nations of trying to “massacre” them and “balkanise” the DRC’s volatile east. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group operates freely in the North …
Read More »ADF: 18 killed in new militia attack in eastern DRC
Beni, DR Congo | AFP | Eighteen people in eastern DR Congo’s troubled region of Beni have been killed in a fresh attack by a notorious armed group, a local official said on Monday. “There was an incursion in Apetina-Sana by the ADF last night,” Beni administrator Donat Kibwana told …
Read More »Four Ebola health workers killed in troubled eastern DRC
Goma, DR Congo | AFP | Four Ebola workers in eastern DR Congo were killed and five injured, adding to the toll of people who have died fighting the nearly 16-month-old epidemic, the UN said Thursday. A member of the vaccination team and two drivers were killed at an Ebola …
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