Gunmen Storm a Congo Prison, Freeing More Than 900 Inmates<br />By STEVE WEMBIJUNE 12, 2017<br />KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Armed men stormed the Kangbayi prison on Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo,<br />freeing more than 900 inmates, most of them charged with taking part in mass killings in the country’s restive northeast.<br />Local news reports said the attackers claimed to be Ugandan fighters of the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group<br />that has been accused of massacring more than 600 people in the past three years.<br />There have been at least four jailbreaks in Congo in the past month, including a mass breakout from the<br />country’s most notorious penitentiary, the Makala maximum-security prison in Kinshasa, the capital.<br />An organization that documents violence in the region, the Center of Study for the Promotion of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights, said in a statement<br />that the jailbreak on Sunday was a major blow to the country’s effort to defeat the rebels and achieve peace and stability.<br />Julien Paluku, the governor of North Kivu Province, where the episode occurred, said the government had not yet identified the attackers.<br />North Kivu Province adjoins Uganda, and the region has been plagued for decades by rebel and militia violence spilling across borders.<br />A military court in Béni has been conducting trials of Allied Democratic Forces fighters and their allies since August 2016.
