In Lokolama, in the Elanga sector, Bikoro territory in the Province of Equateur, a police investigation turns into a tragedy for indigenous populations, with cases of collective torture, looting, arbitrary arrests, and detention.
In the shadow of the night, the ordeal struck without warning. May 3, 2024, will remain etched in the memories of Lokolama, a once peaceful village now splattered with horror. One of the victims recalls the beginning of the nightmare. “Armed to the teeth, police officers encircled the village, annihilating everything in their path.
Like methodical predators, they destroyed, looted homes and what little possessions the inhabitants had, capturing about thirty men, leaving behind an indescribable disaster. Gunshots echoed in all directions, and about ten people fled into the forest to save themselves and never returned for fear of further punitive expeditions. By morning, silence weighed heavily.
The remnants of looting littered the ground, silent witnesses to the terror that had reigned. Among the ruins, over 30 souls arbitrarily arrested, including innocent children and women. The heartbreaking cries of abandoned children still echoed in the broken hearts of survivors. Their arms bound with mosquito nets still bear the scars of a brutality that struck mercilessly. The previous night, tragedy had already struck Lokolama.
A young girl, found murdered with a machete, had spread terror in the village. Instead of shedding light on this heinous crime, the authorities turned to the residents, accusing them without evidence. In a planned outburst of violence, the police inflicted collective punishment, executed, according to testimonies gathered, under the orders of Judicial Inspector Israël Misambo of the General Prosecutor’s Office in Mbandaka, turning the inhabitants into targets of their blind fury.
The village chief described the orchestrated descent into hell with deliberate cruelty: “They aimed their torches at me right after I left my house, along with my wife and my still underage child whom you see here. They all took us, leaving the small children alone in the house, without assistance. With their very strict inspectors. At my age, they tied me up and demanded that I walk in torturous steps, disregarding my social status or age, and they subjected me to torture along with my children. Acute physical torture, and for me, I thought it was settling a score, because I asked myself: did they find a suspect among us in the village? While conducting the investigation, why did they come to inflict these punishments on us like this? Has the investigation become synonymous with mistreating, torturing, ridiculing a people? I don’t believe if their way of doing things could lead them to the culprit? I say that we were facing an armed group and not a regular security force. We were really in the hands of opponents.” The victims’ testimonies are damning.
André, in his thirties, with a voice muffled from torture, pleads for outside intervention as he struggles to recover from his wounds, “I can’t speak anymore after a week I spent at the Mbandaka prosecutor’s office because of this problem. It’s been a week since they kept me in detention very painfully to the point that my throat became blocked by the suffering inflicted in the prosecutor’s cell. To release me, they demanded a fine of 500,000 FC, and with the intervention of my brothers, I paid 100,000 FC to be released, but I still have to go and pay the remaining 100,000 FC this Tuesday, May 21, 2024, following the discharge that Inspector Israël made me sign. But there, I almost died. That’s why I ask for your intervention, because I don’t know how to gather the remaining amount with my condition.”
A school director also bitterly denounces the glaring injustice that persists and the discrimination against indigenous Pygmy peoples by public authorities in violation of Law Number 22/030 of July 15, 2022, on the protection and promotion of the rights of indigenous Pygmy peoples promulgated by the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In Bikoro, the village of Lokolama is but a shadow of itself, a symbol of police brutality that cannot be tolerated. The time has come to act, to restore justice and heal the gaping wounds of this tragedy. The DRC cannot remain blind to this blatant violation of the rights of indigenous Pygmy peoples. It is time for justice to be served and for the perpetrators to be held accountable before the law.
By Franck Zongwe Lukama