Free Republic

At least 5 people have been killed and around 50 injured on July 25, 2022, after hundreds of protesters attacked a United Nations headquarters in Goma, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, demanding that the mission leaves the country for failing to protect the population. The protest started after President Felix Tshisekedi’s party and civil society organizations called for the demonstration in Goma after the president of the Senate, Modeste Bahati, called on the UN’s MONUSCO mission to leave Congo in mid-July. The mission is present in the country for more than 20 years. It is the largest peacekeeping mission...

Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and two other people have been killed in an attack on a United Nations convoy in the restive east of the central African country. The convoy from the World Food Programme (WFP) was attacked at about 10.30am local time (0830 GMT) during an attempted kidnapping near the town of Kanyamahoro, about 10 miles north of the regional capital, Goma, a spokesperson for Virunga national park said. Ambassador Luca Attanasio and a male Italian military police officer travelling with him were killed, the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. A driver...

Radical Islamists have killed at least 30 Christians, raped 10 young women and girls, and kidnapped fifteen others in a spate of recent attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Christian Post reported Wednesday. Between November 20 and December 3, jihadis carried out violent raids on five villages in North Kivu province, northeastern DRC. Armed with guns, machetes, clubs, swords, and axes, the Islamists surrounded churches in each of the five villages and proceeded to assault the Christians inside. “There was a throng of Christians flooding the streets in a helpless situation, as well as radical Muslim extremists...

Army spokesman General Leon Kasonga announced the large-scale offensive on Thursday in the Beni region, an early epicentre of the more than yearlong Ebola outbreak. The offensive primarily targets Allied Democratic Forces rebels who have killed hundreds of civilians and security forces over the past few years and recruited children. Attacks have hampered Ebola containment efforts. The northeast region borders Uganda and Rwanda. The DRC's military offensive comes days after a meeting of regional military leaders on how to rid eastern DRC of rebel groups. But the DRC's army is making clear that it is carrying out this new offensive...

Ebola may soon be a "preventable and treatable" disease after a trial of two drugs showed significantly improved survival rates, scientists have said. Four drugs were trialled on patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there is a major outbreak of the virus. More than 90% of infected people can survive if treated early with the most effective drugs, the research showed. The drugs will now be used to treat all patients with the disease in DR Congo, according to health officials. On Tuesday, two people cured of Ebola using the experimental drugs were released from a treatment centre...

Twenty-six people died of Ebola in a single day in the Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, the highest daily toll since its outbreak nearly nine months ago, the health ministry said Tuesday.

Good Morning.... Israel on the attack in Syria, first a mid-day strike on a southeastern Damascus airport.... The next installment of Qatari Arab cash is on its way to Gaza...... Israeli politics and a Likud party member Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely challenging one of the leaders of the "New Right" Party Education Minister Naftali Bennett...... The womens marches of Yellow Vests in France Sunday.... In the African nation of Zimbabwe last week widespread street demonstrations against the high price of fuel said to be the highest in all of Africa lead to a government crackdown with live ammunition.... Meanwhile...

As we enter the Friday-Saturday news window when things happen to avoid publicity about them one wonders what might be next in the dispute between President Trump and Democrats over funding a barrier on the southern border.... The Battle of Brexit. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn on the attack ahead of next Tuesday's expected vote rejecting Prime Minister Theresa May's proposal for withdrawal from the European Union..... To France where a cabinet minister in the government of President Emmanuel Macron says she is looking into foreign power giving support to the Yellow Vests protests..... US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking...

A new Ebola epidemic has been declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the deaths of three people thought to be linked to the virus. The country’s health ministry confirmed one person has tested positive for the virus. The World Health Organisation confirmed that the DR Congo had informed them of a lab-confirmed case of the disease " On 11 May 2017, the Min of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo notified WHO & partners of a lab-confirmed case of #Ebola#DRC — WHO (@WHO) May 12, 2017 " The case was confirmed from tests on nine people...

President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered his administration to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the United States next year, amid international pressure to act as heartbreaking images emerge of sometimes-deadly attempts to escape to Europe. California is the top resettlement destination, but some likely will come to centers in the Baltimore area, where refugees will be provided with furnished apartments, classes in English and American culture and help finding work. The International Rescue Committee office in Highlandtown, which has helped to resettle 26 Syrian refugees this year, anticipates receiving many more. The agency helps to resettle...

An army of child tyrants is terrorising nothern Uganda FIRST the rebels tied Geofrey Obita’s hands behind his back so tightly that he could barely move his fingers. Then, telling the 16-year-old schoolboy not to scream, they sliced off his ears. Then they pushed him down to the ground and cut off what they could of his lips. “They were all over me, stamping, pushing, cutting. I could not move, I could barely breathe,” he told The Times in a barely audible whisper from his hospital bed in the small impoverished northern Ugandan town of Kitgum. Yet the child soldiers...

Uganda's army has accused the Lord's Resistance Army rebels of hacking to death 45 civilians in a Catholic church in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Capt Chris Magezi said the scene was "horrendous... dead bodies of mostly women and children cut in pieces". The attack happened on 26 December. A rebel spokesman has denied responsibility for the killings, which follow a collapse in the peace process. The UN says at least 189 people were killed in several attacks last week. Some reports say more than 100 people were killed in the church alone. The armies of Uganda, South Sudan and DR...

(Reuters) - An unmanned aircraft used by U.N. peacekeepers in Democratic Republic of Congo crashed on Wednesday near the eastern town of Goma, sources at the airport and interior ministry said. ... A source at Goma's airport confirmed the incident. A spokesman for the U.N. mission was not available for comment. The Falco drones used by the U.N. force are manufactured by Selex ES, a unit of Italian defence group Finmeccanica. The firm was not immediately available for comment.

KAMPALA, Uganda At least 1,700 Congolese M23 rebels, including the top commander, have surrendered to Ugandan authorities following their defeat by Congolese troops, a Ugandan military official said Thursday. Gen. Sultani Makenga, M23's military commander, and his fighters were being held by the Ugandan military in Mgahinga, a forested area near the Congo border, the official said. The rebels had been disarmed and were being registered by Ugandan officials, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give this information. This week the rebels lost control of all the territory they once held...

WINDHOEK (AFP) – Southern African nations on Saturday expressed concern at the growing number of Rwandan troops on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and said it hoped an invasion was not imminent. A statement from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional body said it was concerned "at the deployment of Rwandan troops along the common border" and "expressed the hope that Rwanda is not contemplating to invade". ... The UN accuses Rwanda of backing the M23, a charge the country has adamantly denied. The rebels in turn have accused the Congolese army of joining forces against...

UN peacekeepers in the Congo were drawn into a gun battle between unidentified gunmen and the M23 rebel group today and shot four of the attackers, a UN spokesman said. About 30 unidentified people assaulted an M23 rebel position early today five miles (eight kilometres) from Goma in Congo's North Kivu province, spokesman Martin Nesirky said. The M23 rebels counter-attacked, and as the assailants retreated they fired shots at the UN peacekeepers' post, Nesirky said.

In a small house on a hill overlooking Lake Kivu, a young Congolese soldier recounts the crimes he and his comrades committed in Minova a few months ago. "Twenty-five of us gathered together and said we should rape 10 women each, and we did it," he said. "I've raped 53 women. And children of five or six years old. "I didn't rape because I am angry, but because it gave us a lot of pleasure," says 22-year-old Mateso (not his real name). "When we arrived here we met a lot of women. We could do whatever we wanted." ... On...

Alexandre Mapokopero is proud to work for SNCC, the national railway of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the last time he actually mounted a train was back in June. As chief train attendant in the southern city of Lubumbashi, his job is to attend to passengers' every needs while they are travelling. He turns up for work every day but there is no work to go to because so few of the country's trains are actually running. Mr Mapokopero complains that he is owed more than 60 months' back-pay. "I can't afford to resign," he says, hoping that one...

The United States has signed a deal with Bhutan giving US citizens in the country immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the State Department said Tuesday. The deal with Bhutan brings to 34 the number of countries with which the United States has signed so-called "Article 98" agreements exempting US citizens from the court's jurisdiction, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokesman. Bhutan and Bosnia-Herzegovina both agreed to the pacts on May 16 but the deal with Thimphu was not announced until Tuesday. Washington refuses to support the ICC, arguing that it could become a forum for politically...

A senior official with the International Monetary Fund expressed concern over the Democratic Republic of Congo's levels of debt to China, in a report released Wednesday after a 18-day visit here.