Sport

AFCON: Ivory Coast Pip DR Congo 1-0, To Face S. Eagles

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Sebastien Haller scored the winner as 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON, hosts Ivory Coast beat DR Congo to set up a final meeting with Nigeria.

The only goal of a cagey contest in Abidjan came in the 65th minute when Haller’s volley bounced down into the ground and up over Leopards goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi.

DR Congo did not look like getting a late equaliser, although Meschack Elia sent a volley wide of the left-hand upright and Simon Banza then fired well over in injury time.

Ivory Coast had sacked Jean-Louis Gasset as boss before scraping through the group stage, and had needed late goals against both Senegal and Mali to progress to the last four.

Interim boss Emerse Fae, will now try to guide the Elephants to a third continental title, with the hope of adding to their triumphs in 1992 and 2015, when they face three-time winners Nigeria in Abidjan on Sunday by 20:00 GMT.

The first meeting between the two teams during the group stage of this tournament ended one nil in favour of the Super Eagles.

The Super Eagles had reached the final earlier on Wednesday after beating South Africa 4-2 on penalties following a dramatic 1-1 draw in Bouake.

BBC/Maxwell Oyekunle

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Foreign

River Congo Floods Trigger Chaos in Kinshasa

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Floods have wreaked chaos in Kinshasa – the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo – with water pouring into homes and residents navigating submerged roads via canoe.

The overflowing River Congo, passing through much of the country, has also swamped places outside the capital.

The vast, vital waterway has reached its highest level in six decades.

More than 300 people have died in floods over the past months, officials say.

On Thursday, residents in the impoverished megacity of Kinshasa told the BBC how “schools, hospitals and churches” have been washed away.

“I had lived here with my relatives… I have lost everything,” Jonas Mungindami said.

Similarly, Denise Tuzola said her house is now “full of water”.

“There is no church here anymore and there is no way for the children to go to school,” she added.

Kinshasa is home to several small rivers and streams, which often double as open sewers. Many have now overflown.

On one flooded street, a man waded through through thigh-level water, hauling a canoe full of passengers behind him. Trucks drove cautiously through the same waters, while dozens of discarded bottles bob on the surface.

The RVF, the agency overseeing DR Congo’s waterways, sounded the alarm in late December.

It warned that heavy rains would cause “exceptional flooding” around the Kinshasa area.

By this point, provinces such as Mongala and Ituri had already faced serious flooding.

In Kinshasa, flooding is common but this year the Congo River has risen just shy of 6.26 metres, the level reached during record flooding in 1961.

Further upstream, in the city of Kisangani, the mayor said that over 200 houses have been submerged.

The Congo River has also caused turmoil in Congo-Brazzaville, a nation that borders DR Congo.

Flooding there has impacted more than 336,000 people and 34 health facilities, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely.

Just over a year ago, floods in Kinshasa left more than 120 people dead.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Foreign

Fighting Erupts in DR Congo between Pro-Government Forces, M23 Rebels

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Fighting has again erupted in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo between pro-government forces and rebels from the M23 group.

Residents say the rebels have occupied the town of Kitshanga in North Kivu province since Saturday.

Several people have been taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, a local radio station reported.

“The rebels are in Kitshanga and we are trying to find a way to retake the town,” a security source told AFP news agency.

The area has changed hands several times since the beginning of the year.

Fighting resumed three weeks ago after a six-month truce. The area was previously patrolled by an international force provided by Congo’s neighbours.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

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Sport

Sexual Abuse: FIFA Bans DR Congo Coach for 20 Years

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By Olaolu Fawole

The adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee has banned Mr Jonathan Bukabakwa, a former youth coach at clubs of the Urban Football Agreement of the regions of Lipopo and Malebo in Congo DR, from all football-related activities for 20 years.

Mr. Bukabakwa was banned after having found him guilty of sexually abusing a minor football player and in addition, the adjudicatory chamber imposed a fine of CHF 100,000 on Mr Bukabakwa.

According to a statement issued by FIFA, the case arose following serious allegations related to the sexual abuse of minors in the Congo DR Football Association (FECOFA) that were made on several media platforms, in which various football coaches of different regions and leagues in Congo DR were accused of having abused minor players.

FIFA had earlier this year, suspended Mr Bukabakwa for five months.

It states further that, in deciding the case, the adjudicatory chamber took into account the evidence collected during the investigations and was comfortably satisfied that Mr Bukabakwa had breached article 24 (Protection of physical and mental integrity) of the Code of Ethics and the terms of the decision were notified to Mr Bukabakwa on Friday, October 2023, the date on which the ban comes into force, and will be followed by the notification of the grounds within the next 60 days in accordance with the FIFA Code of Ethics.

The statement adds that the decision taken by the adjudicatory chamber was in line with FIFA’s zero tolerance approach to all forms of abuse in football.

The world football’s governing body has regularly updated its regulatory framework in recent years to provide greater protection to victims of discrimination and sexual abuse or harassment.

Foreign

DR Congo Confirms New Ebola Case

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The Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed a new case of Ebola in its violence-wracked east, the country’s health ministry said, just weeks after the end of a previous epidemic.

The DRC early last month declared its latest Ebola outbreak over, more than two months after the virus re-emerged in the northwestern Equateur province.

Last week, however, the World Health Organization said DR Congo was investigating a suspected case.

The sample from a 46-year-old woman who died on August 15 in Beni city, North Kivu province, “tested positive” for Ebola, DR Congo’s health ministry said in a statement published late Monday.

It added that tests showed the case is linked to a previous strain of the virus from 2018 and was not a new variant.

The ministry sought to reassure the public that officials were “hard at work on the ground” to respond to the situation.

Around 160 people have been identified as contact cases, it added.

Ebola is an often fatal viral haemorrhagic fever.

The disease was named after a river in Zaire, as the country was known when it was discovered.

Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.

Over 120 militias roam the DRC’s mineral-rich but volatile east, where attacks on civilians are routine.

Punch/Titilayo Kupoliyi

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DR Congo Soldiers Cross into Uganda as M23 Claim Capture of Bunagana

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Dozens of soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo have crossed into Uganda after the M23 rebels blocked the main road to Rutshuru.

Ugandan army spokesperson Brig Gen Felix Kulaigye told the BBC that the soldiers were being received at a Ugandan army barracks at the border town of Bunagana.

A source told the BBC that some of the Congolese soldiers had arrived in military vehicles while others crossed on foot.

Reports indicate that the M23 rebels overran the Congolese side of Bunagana on Monday morning.

Pictures of overturned armoured vehicles believed to belong to the Congolese army – the FARDC, have also been shared on social media.

UN agencies say that more than 30,000 people in the Rutshuru territory of North Kivu province fled their homes over the weekend.

Hundreds have been internally displaced while others have crossed the border to Uganda.

The Ugandan side of Bunagana border town is crowded with people who have fled their homes due to the fighting over the last couple of days.

Some had wanted to return home on Monday morning, but even more, people are now fleeing the fighting.

Fighting between the government forces and the army has intensified over the last couple of weeks after the Congolese government designated the M23 as a terrorist group and refused their calls for a bilateral ceasefire or peace negotiations.

DR Congo accuses Rwanda of supporting the group made up of mainly ethnic Congolese Tutsi, but the government in Kigali has continually denied these accusations.

Meanwhile, the M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo claim to have captured the border town of Bunagana near Uganda, according to their spokesman.

“We control the whole of the town now,” Willy Ngoma, the M23 spokesman told BBC Great Lakes.

The claim follows heavy fighting between the army and rebels that on Monday saw some government soldiers cross over to Uganda, the UN-backed Radio Okapi reports citing sources.

The DR Congo authorities have not yet commented on M23’s claim.

Army spokesperson Lt Col Guillaume Ndjike Kaiko said he would comment on this “later”, but a statement on Sunday night had said they repelled an attack by the rebels in Bunagana.

The UN says that more than 30,000 people have been displaced by the latest fighting.

Bunagana town is strategic in cross-border trade and is located some 70km (43 miles) north-east of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

The town served as M23’s base when they captured Goma in November 2012 before they lost the war and fled to Uganda.

BBC/Simeon Ugbodovon

Foreign

DR Congo Attack Claims 14 Lives

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Fourteen civilians were killed in an attack on a displaced persons’ camp in Ituri province in the conflict-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

The attack occurred on Monday, according to the Kivu Security Tracker, a respected monitor of violence in the region.

It added that it suspected militants from an ethnic armed group called CODECO to be behind the attack.

CODECO is the name for the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.

It is considered one of the deadliest militias operating in the east of the country, blamed for a number of ethnic massacres in Ituri.

President of an association of civil society groups in the region, Jules Tsuba, said most of the victims in Monday’s attack were children and stressed the death toll was provisional.

Photos seen by the AFP showed children splayed on the ground, covered in blood.

Ituri and neighbouring North Kivu province have been governed by the security forces since May last year in a bid to stem attacks, but massacres have continued.

AFP/Titilayo Kupoliyi

Foreign

US Sanctions Belgian Dealer, Others Over Smuggling of Gold

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Belgian gold dealer, Alain Goetz and a network of companies have been sanctioned by the US for allegedly smuggling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The US government says since 2016, Mr Goetz has been trading illegally in gold that has come from Congolese mines controlled by armed groups who often use forced labour or exploit miners.

US treasury official Brian Nelson said that “conflict gold” provided the largest source of revenue to armed groups in eastern DR Congo.

“Alain Goetz and his network have contributed to armed conflict by receiving DRC gold without questioning its origin,” he said

Mr Goetz, who operates the African Gold Refinery, one of the firms sanctioned, denies the allegations.

Mr Alain Goetz denies all allegations

He told the Associated Press agency the move would undermine his efforts to improve transparency: “International organisations can now easily verify information and quote figures because of the transparency that I laid a foundation for with the launch of African Gold Refinery.”

The majority of DR Congo’s population do not benefit from the country’s vast mineral wealth, with many living on less than $2 a day.

The US government estimates that 90% of gold from DR Congo is smuggled out of the country – much of it to Uganda and Rwanda – before it is sold on to international markets.

BBC