Maluku mass grave

Monusco is ready to support a joint investigation

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has said it’s ready to offer its logistical support for the Congolese justice to investigate the mass grave found in Maluku in the East of the country’s capital city, Kinshasa.

The mass grave containing 421 corpses was discovered in that part of the DRC a month ago ; the opposition suspects these might be victims of last January repression, but the government has explained and tried to prove that it’s indigent people and other corpses abandoned in mortuaries of different hospitals of the Congolese capital city.

The Congolese prosecutor of the republic launched an investigation as soon as he was informed in order to try and bring more light to show what has happened exactly, but both the opposition and several Non-Government Organizations have demanded an independent investigation for the matter to be clear.

This is why ‘‘the United Nations mission in the DRC is ready to offer its logistical support to the prosecutor of the republic’’, according to the Monusco director of the public information department, Charles Antoine Bambara who hopes the investigation will be done jointly by the Congolese justice and the UN mission in the country.

‘‘This is what many people are asking and this is what we are ready to do’’, said Charles Bambara before adding that such an investigation has to be impartial and needs to go at the bottom of things to reassure people and tell them clearly the truth of what is around the Maluku issue.

The investigation underway is led by the government but more people wish Monusco should be involved and indeed, the UN mission believes the support it’s prepared to offer would be closely linked to the investigation on the ground.   

Bambara has described the matter as a very important issue that really ‘‘needs to be jointly investigated since the Congolese minister of justice Alexis Thambwe Mwamba has put it clear he remains open and he really wants this joint investigation’’.

The United Joint Office for Human Rights has been linked to the investigation from the starting but what Monusco is asking now is ‘‘to really make things happen effectively’’ so that both sides can join hands to investigate the issue on the ground and make inquiries in Maluku. ‘‘It’s only after such inquiries that the UN mission will have to come out with figures and publish the results, but not before’’, said Bambara.

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been communicating these last days in order to let people know more about the 421 corpses in the Fulafula cemetery mass grave and they even came out with several proofs showing that the operation has been done since years to try and save more space in the Kinshasa central mortuary since it’s the one receiving all the corpses that have been abandoned in other mortuaries of the capital city.

The proofs including different documents have been presented last week to Members of the Parliament in the National Assembly, to numerous diplomats representing their countries in Kinshasa and to both national and international media.

Among the DRC decision makers who have tried to bring more explanations on the Maluku mass grave are the deputy prime minister in charge of Home Affairs Evarist Boshab, the government spokesperson and minister of Communication and media Lambert Mende, the minister of justice and human rights Alexis Thambwe Mwamba and the mayor of Kinshasa Andre Kimbuta.

But really, the Congolese opposition is questioning the government’s truth around the matter and continues suspecting the corpses contained in the Fulafula mass grave might be those of people who lost their lives last January while demonstrating against the electoral law review, although different sources said it’s 27 people who were killed during that demonstration.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo authorities have officially announced that other new corpses abandoned in the Kinshasa central mortuary were buried few days ago.

Africa Connection