This Tuesday, June 22, the Minister of Human Rights visited Fabrice Puela Tshisuku at the Kasaïcentralen. A ceremony was held for the handing over of ten bodies, ten victims who had been extracted from a mass grave for justice and medical needs. legal investigations. These bodies were installed in a mausoleum built in memory of the massacre.
It was at the time of the uprising for the followers of the ordinary leader Kamuina Nsapu. At 2 p.m., an unknown number of soldiers from a 2101 FARDC regiment opened fire on Tshisuku Square. They were on board four Kamaz type vehicles.
They were indiscriminately targeting traders and customers, killing at least 50 people. The victims include at least nine children and 79 women who were raped. This is the result of military justice Congolese woman who has made it one of her 16 priority cases in the Kasaïd area since the end of 2017.
Of these 16 cases, only three have made real progress, and only since President Felix Tshisekedi, himself from this region, came to power. But no one has been tried yet. Tshisuku’s case has been submitted to the Supreme Military Court since November 2020 for fixation, and it has still not been done.
Kneeling
Minister Fabrice Puela knelt to ask for forgiveness. His communications department explains that it came to him spontaneously, in front of emotions aroused by this ceremony. Fabrice Puela had first meditated in front of the coffins before kneeling and asking for forgiveness in the local language from the common chiefs.
In his speech, the minister declared that his presence was a “clear signal” that “the fight against impunity could not spare anyone”, he promised that “already fixed” acts would be “reactivated”. The representative of the victims told him that the residents of Tshisuku would continue to mourn “until the state acknowledges its responsibility and pays, if only symbolically, significant compensation to the victims”.
