Republic of Congo

BENI (DR Congo), July 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Suspected members of a militia shot and killed 16 people as they were returning home from a weekly market in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, local and medical sources said Friday. 

The dead from the ambush on Thursday evening included six women and a child, all of whom were shot, Jerome Munyambethe, head of the hospital in the town of Oicha, said.

“We have 16 bodies in the hospital morgue,” town mayor Nicolas Kikuku said.

He said another nine wounded were being treated at the hospital.

KINSHASA, July 15 (Reuters) - Former Congolese Prime Minister Matata Ponyo Mapon has been freed from house arrest after he agreed to make himself available to answer questions about the alleged misappropriation of government funds, his lawyer said.

The house arrest order was lifted late on Wednesday, said the lawyer, Laurent Onyemba.

BENI, Congo, June 28 (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's army said on Monday an Islamist militia which claims links to Islamic State (IS) was responsible for two blasts in the eastern city of Beni, as the mayor closed local schools, churches and markets in a tightening of security.

The army said Sunday's attacks bore the signature of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which has used improvised explosive devices in the past.

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Thousands of people are returning to Goma and a surrounding region in eastern Congo hoping to find their homes still intact weeks after a volcano erupted, but fearing the worst.

The eruption on May 22 of Mount Nyiragongo forced tens of thousands of people to flee with no warning as lava flowed through their communities.

(Reuters) --- At least 50 people were killed overnight in two attacks on villages in eastern Congo, in potentially the worst night of violence the area has seen in at least four years, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST) research group said on Monday.

The army and a local civil rights group blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist armed group, for raiding the village of Tchabi and a camp for displaced people near Boga, another village. Both are close to the border of Uganda.

(Reuters) --- Around 400,000 people need support or protection after fleeing a volcano eruption and a wave of aftershocks in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said on Friday.

At least 31 people died when Mount Nyiragongo sent a wall of lava spreading towards the city of Goma on Saturday, destroying 3,000 homes along the way and cutting a major road used to bring aid to the strife-torn region. 

GOMA (DR Congo), May 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The risk of further eruptions from volcano Nyiragongo led DR Congo authorities to order the evacuation of parts of the city of Goma Thursday, causing an immediate exodus of tens of thousands of people.

“Current data on seismicity and the deformation of the ground indicate the presence of magma under the urban area of Goma, with an extension under Lake Kivu,” the local military governor General Constant Ndima said in a broadcasted public address.

KINSHASA, May 25 (NNN-IRIN) – The death toll linked to the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo volcano, on Saturday, in the north-eastern province of North Kivu, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has risen to 32, and is likely to further rise, the DRC authorities said yesterday.

Among the victims, nine were burned to death, when lava hit their homes, and five died from inhaling smoke or toxic gas, when walking across the cooling lava, said Joseph Makundi, head of civil protection of the province.

Goma (Congo), May 24 (AP-PTI) Torrents of lava poured into villages after dark in eastern Congo with little warning, leaving at least 15 people dead amid the chaos and destroying more than 500 homes, officials and survivors have said.

The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on Saturday night sent about 5,000 people fleeing from the city of Goma across the nearby border into Rwanda, while another 25,000 others sought refuge to the northwest in Sake, the UN children's agency said Sunday.

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s Mount Nyiragongo erupted for the first time in nearly two decades Saturday, turning the night sky a fiery red and sending lava onto a major highway as panicked residents tried to flee Goma, a city of nearly 2 million.

There was no immediate word on any casualties, but witnesses said that lava already had engulfed one highway that connects Goma with the city of Beni in North Kivu province.