A Congolese army plane crashed into a residential area in the town of Kenge on Friday, killing all 14 people on board, including the two most senior figures in the country's military justice system. Among the dead were Lieutenant-General Joseph Mutombo Katalay, president of the High Military Court, and Lieutenant-General Lucien-René Likulia, the army's auditor-general, effectively its chief military prosecutor. Their deaths represent a severe blow to the institutional leadership of military justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The small Antonov aircraft had been chartered by authorities for an official visit to the provinces. The delegation had travelled from Kinshasa, the capital, to Ilebo, stopping in the southwestern city of Kikwit on both legs of the journey. A photograph taken at Kikwit airport showed members of the delegation just 30 minutes before the crash. On the return trip, the plane developed a technical fault and attempted an emergency landing in Kenge, the administrative capital of Kwango province — a territory created just eleven years ago. With no airstrip available in the town, the aircraft came down in a grassy savanna area that turned out to be an uninhabited private plot. Remy Saki Bokinda, the deputy governor of Kwango, confirmed the aircraft had crashed into a residential area.
Military spokesperson Major-General Efomi Ekenge said 12 of the victims were burned beyond recognition, while the pilot's body was found outside the burning wreckage — the only one not completely charred. The army dispatched a helicopter by the end of the day to recover the remains. An investigation has been opened by both the military and the Bureau of Permanent Investigations into Aviation Accidents and Incidents, which said it had sent a team to the site.
The two generals who perished had presided over some of the most sensitive military proceedings in recent Congolese history, including the trial in absentia of former president Joseph Kabila. Their simultaneous loss effectively decapitates the leadership of the country's military judicial system at a particularly fraught moment. The DRC, a vast, mineral-rich nation in central Africa, is currently engaged in sustained military operations against several armed rebel groups that have seized key towns in the east of the country, where conflict over lucrative mining areas has persisted for decades. The crash underscores the fragile state of the country's military and institutional infrastructure as it continues to grapple with those crises.