DR Congo’s Yumbi Massacre Survivors Desperate for Justice
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Senior Researcher, Democratic Republic of Congo
In late December 2018, Father Nestor Longota, a Catholic priest, returned to Bongende, his home village in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo. “What I saw was unimaginable,” he said last week. “There were putrefied bodies, some were mutilated, others had been burned in houses, and houses were destroyed.”
A few days earlier, on December 16, hundreds of ethnic Batende – armed with hunting rifles, automatic weapons, knives, and machetes – stormed the nearby town of Yumbi and killed at least 170 people, mostly ethnic Banunu. The day after, they attacked the villages of Nkolo II and then Bongende. A total of 535 people were killed, and 111 others injured. Father Longota lost at least 30 members of his extended family. He is still awaiting justice.