Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.
The attorney general in Democratic Republic of Congo announced he was investigating a former minister for his alleged role in violence in the central Kasai region that has killed hundreds in the recent months. The news came after the New York Times reported that the official, Clement Kanku, who until recently served as development minister, had been implicated in evidence, including a recorded phone conversation, collected by Zaida Catalan, one of two U.N. investigators shot and killed in Congo earlier this year.
Congolese officials have made public a video intended to show that Catalan, a Swedish-Chilean, and her American colleague Michael Sharp were killed by Kamuina Nsapu rebels, though the credibility of the video has been called into question amid suspicion that Congolese forces may have been involved. The Times report also raised questions about the level of training and preparation given to the two investigators. The paper’s editorial board criticized “an astoundingly irresponsible approach by the United Nations to an obviously dangerous and hugely important task.”