Tag: DR Congo

DR Congo’s former health official held over Covid funds fraud

KINSHASA, DR Congo (AFP) — Former DR Congo health minister Eteni Longondo was detained on Friday over the alleged misappropriation of funds allocated to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, official sources said. Longondo “was placed under a provisional arrest warrant this evening” following lengthy questioning, a government source said. The former health minister, who was in office until April, was taken to the Makala prison in the capital Kinshasa, according to a prison official […]

33 killed as bus hits fuel truck in DR Congo

KIKWIT, DR Congo (AFP) — Thirty-three people died in a horrific collision between a fuel truck and a crowded bus in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the weekend, police said Monday. The victims were engulfed by a “huge fire sparked by the collision” overnight Saturday in the west of the country, local police captain Antoine Pululu told AFP. Another police source said the bodies were destroyed by the flames, adding that the remains that […]

‘Exponential’ rise in virus cases in DR Congo capital: WHO

KINSHASA, DR Congo (AFP) — The UN’s health agency on Thursday said it had detected a surge late last month in coronavirus cases in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. “An exponential rise in the spread of SARS-Cov-2 virus has been recorded in Kinshasa,” the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a weekly report, as a DRC health ministry official confirmed “the third wave of Covid-19 is already there — it’s the […]

DR Congo president says, situation ‘under control’ after volcano eruption

by Alexis Huguet GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — The situation is “under control” following the eruption of a volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo, President Felix Tshisekedi said on Saturday after his government mistakenly announced another volcano had erupted. A week after Mount Nyiragongo roared back into life, causing devastation and sparking a mass exodus, “the situation is certainly serious but it is under control,” Tshisekedi told a news conference. Around 400,000 residents have […]

‘Limnic eruption’: DR Congo’s volcano nightmare

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — Orders on Thursday to evacuate Goma, a city lying in the shadow of DR Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo volcano, have shed light on a rare but potentially catastrophic risk — a “limnic eruption,” when volcanic activity combined with a deep lake can spew out lethal, suffocating gas. The phenomenon first came to the world’s attention in August 1984, when 37 people mysteriously died at Lake Monoun in western Cameroon. Scientists found […]

Volcano warning sparks evacuation order, exodus in DR Congo

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — DR Congo authorities ordered the evacuation of part of the city of Goma on Thursday over the risk of further eruptions from volcano Nyiragongo, causing an immediate exodus of tens of thousands of people, an AFP correspondent said. “Right now we can’t rule out an eruption on land or under the lake (Kivu), which could happen very soon and without warning,” the local military governor General Constant Ndima told media. […]

DR Congo volcano aftershocks rattle residents, damage buildings

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — Aftershocks from the Mount Nyiragongo volcano in eastern DR Congo rattled the nearby city of Goma on Wednesday, four days after its eruption, badly damaging several buildings and prompting hundreds of residents to flee and the UN to relocate some of its staff. The tremors were felt throughout the night. Two powerful shocks from Africa’s most active volcano caused terrified people to run out of their homes. The seismic monitoring […]

Up to 2,500 homes destroyed in DR Congo volcano eruption

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — As many as 2,500 homes were destroyed after the Nyiragongo volcano erupted in eastern DR Congo last weekend, according to an estimate by humanitarian groups Tuesday. Molten lava destroyed between 900 and 2,500 dwellings, said Raphael Tenaud, deputy head of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation, adding that this meant at least 5,000 people were now homeless. © Agence France-Presse

Volcano death toll rises as aftershocks shake DR Congo

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — Five people were found choked to death on toxic fumes from the eruption of eastern DR Congo’s Nyiragongo volcano on Monday, as strong aftershocks rocked the city of Goma. The deaths bring to 20 the number killed since Africa’s most active volcano erupted on Saturday, spewing red-hot molten lava that engulfed homes in its wake. “We have just discovered five dead people,” civil society leader Mambo Kawaya told AFP, saying […]

Goma city ‘spared’ as river of lava from DRC volcano halts

by Albert Kambale / Justin Katimwa GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — A river of red-hot lava stopped Sunday on the edge of Goma, sparing the eastern DR Congo city from disaster after an overnight eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano sent thousands of terrified residents fleeing in panic. Fire and fumes rose from the blackish molten rock as it swallowed up houses, flowing towards Goma airport on the shores of Lake Kivu and leaving smouldering wreckage […]

Lava reaches Goma airport in DR Congo after volcanic eruption

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — A lava flow reached the airport of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern city of Goma early Sunday after the eruption of the Mount Nyiragongo volcano, an official said. “The situation is deteriorating,” an official from Virunga National Park — where the erupting volcano is located — said in a message to staff, which AFP was copied in on. “Besides the lava flow in the north east (Kibumba / Rwanda), […]

DR Congo orders Goma evacuation after volcano erupts

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — The government of the Democratic of Congo on Saturday ordered the evacuation of the eastern city of Goma after the eruption of the Mount Nyiragongo volcano overlooking the border city. Even before the official announcement, thousands of people had started filling the streets and carrying what they could as they headed out of the city, which has already suffered from previous eruptions. But later Saturday, Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya tweeted: […]