Bukavu, 16 April, 2024 / 11:10 pm (ACI Africa).
Catholic Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are decrying insecurity in their Episcopal Sees.
In their collective statement issued Sunday, April 14, the members of the Provincial Episcopal Assembly of Bukavu (ASSEPB) say, “Insecurity has become endemic, with its trail of killings even in the middle of the day, massacres and kidnappings of peaceful citizens in our towns and villages.”
ASSEPB members decry “the opening up of most of our territorial entities; the M23's surrounding of the town of Goma supported by Rwanda; the strategy of paralysing the economy by isolating and suffocating large and small towns.”
“Despite the holding of elections, the Congolese state remains weak and ineffective,” they further lament.
The Catholic Church leaders fault the President Felix Tshisekedi-led government for living citizens to their own devices, saying, “The Congolese State is dead, and we, the governed, are abandoned to our sad fate; and we see no indication that today's rulers are thinking about the well-being of the governed in the near future.”
