The Chief Public Prosecutor at the Tshikapa Peace Court, magistrate Nkolomonyi, was assassinated in the locality of Kasala, a few kilometers northwest of the city of Tshikapa, in Kasai Province, according to provincial authorities. This situation bears witness to the growing insecurity in this region, which is plagued by highway robbers and armed gangs.
The governor of the province, Me Dieudonné Pieme, confirmed this sad news and declared that he had sent investigators on site to find out more. Questioned by us, he said: “It’s been 14 hours since magistrate Nkolomonyi was killed. He was coming back from the bush and came across highway robbers who lodged bullets in his chest and died immediately”.
A customary authority close to the scene of the attack, for its part, reported that magistrate Nkolomonyi had gone to a diamond mine to supervise a team of artisanal miners. The security forces responsible for ensuring the safety of the magistrate would have witnessed an argument between the police and the operators before an accidental shot hit the chief prosecutor.
The assassination of magistrate Nkolomonyi continues to aggravate the security situation in Kasaï and the city of Tshikapa in particular, where organized crime is in the process of plaguing rural areas. Tshikapa’s civil society denounced the passivity of the police who, according to them, do not intervene quickly to solve the problems. They pointed out in particular that the only police vehicle is used for the private services of the provincial commissioner and that the police are often forced to intervene on foot.
The assassination of a magistrate is one more illustration of the growing impunity of criminal gangs in remote areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Such cases should be handled with extreme vigilance in order to protect law and order officials and restore order to this region.