AFRICA/CONGO RD - Dismay for the death, only months apart, of the two army officers who defeated M23

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - “We are orphans since the death of General Lucien Bahuma Ambamba who raised the banner for Congo’s armed forces” says a report sent to Fides by the civil society in North Kivu in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the death of commander Bahuma, who led the Congolese army in the victorious offensive against the guerrilla group M23 (seeFides 6/11/2013).
The general died of “cardiac arrest” in a South African hospital where he was taken urgently from Uganda, after suffering a heart attack while taking part in a meeting with Ugandan fellow officers. His death comes only a few months after the killing in an ambush of colonel (now posthumous general) Mamadou Ndala, Commander of Brigade URR (Rapid Reaction Unit, see Fides 15/1/2014). Congo’s civil society calls for an inquiry to clarify the circumstances of the death of the general, whose competence will be greatly missed while eastern Democratic Congo still has to deal with the presence of various other armed groups which harass the people.
These groups include ADF-Nalu of Ugandan origin which, according to Fides’ sources, in late August intensified raids on villages in the area of Beni. The same sources report that a few hundred former combatants of M23 and FDLR who surrendered and were repatriated to Rwanda, have joined the ranks of ADF-Nalu.
Another statement sent to Fides denounced the kidnapping of a professor and secretary general of Kivu University in Goma. The two academics were taken hostage while travelling on a public bus from Goma to Butembo, where they intended to take part in the funeral of a professor of the Graben Catholic University. According to the report this was a targeted kidnapping which followed that of an evangelical pastor last week. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 2/9/2014)