DRC: Police surround guru of political sect behind violence

Dozens of police surrounded Thursday in Kinshasa the residence of the guru of a politico-sectarian movement responsible for several deadly clashes in recent weeks in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, found a journalist of the AFP.

Police have surrounded but not yet stormed the residence of Muanda Na Nsemi, leader of the Bundu Dia Kongo (BDK) movement. A red band tied around the head, several dozen of his supporters defied the security forces. Officials were present on the premises, some of whom went to negotiate with the guru in his residence.

The day before, 14 of its followers had been killed by the security forces in Songololo in the neighboring province of Kongo Central (south-west), along the only road that connects Kinshasa to its only maritime outlets.

It was an "operation to restore public order" against followers who want to drive out of Kongo-Central the "non-native", that is to say Congolese from elsewhere, a Interior Minister Gilbert Kankonde said in a statement.

A dozen people, followers and police, were killed in two previous clashes along the RN1 in mid-April.

At the end of March, the police dispersed in Kinshasa a BDK rally which violated the ban on any public gathering of more than 20 people, a provision of the “state of health emergency” decreed by the head of state in front of the Covid-19.

The Bundu Dia Kongo say they want to reconstitute the kingdom of Kongo as it existed in the 15th century, before colonization, from Angola to Gabon.