AFRICA/DR CONGO - About 300 detainees of the prison in Kangbayi on the run: "The people are afraid"

Tuesday, 20 October 2020 civil society   armed groups  

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - More than 300 detainees escaped today, when a group of armed men attacked Kangbayi Central Prison in Beni, north of Kivu, in eastern DRC at 4 a.m.
As a representative of the Center for Studies for the Promotion of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights (CEPADHO), a local NGO that has been monitoring violence against the civilian population in the region for years, points out, among the detainees who have escaped there are also "members of various armed groups, such as the ADF, but also May-May and other formations". "The population is afraid because they fear that these people could repeat the crimes for which they were imprisoned", the representative of CEPADHO told Fides.
According to a report by the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO), drawn up together with the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), there are 397 cases of human rights violations attributable to the ADF between 1 January 2019 and 31 January 2020, with the killing of at least 1,154 people including 235 women and 166 children (see Fides, 8/7 /20020).
The ADF rebels are said to have joined the Islamic State in Central Africa (see Fides, 18/6/2019), but according to various local observers, interests related to the action of this movement and the many other groups active in the region are hidden with illegal exploitation of the region's enormous natural resources (see Fides, 23/3/2017). (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 20/10/2020)


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