A 30-year-old parish vicar in the town of Fataki, in Congo's
northern Ituri province, was murdered by a militia following a recent raid.
The town where Father Justin Mandro Kpanga worked is predominately populated by
the Hema ethnic group. The murder was linked to an opposing Lendu militia.
Eyewitnesses reported the incident to the pastor, Father Protais Dhena,
according to news sources.
Contact with the Congolese priest ceased at the beginning of August, when
Fataki was attacked by the Lendu militia. Following the attack, Father Kpanga
was deported along with several civilians. A number of those abducted by the
Lendu militia, who managed to escape, said that the priest was shot to death.
"His body was abandoned alongside the road, while he was being deported
together with other civilians, but for the moment, due to the insecurity
throughout the area, it is impossible to recover his body," a religious
source from Bunia told the Misna agency.
Bunia, the administrative capital of the troubled Ituri province, has been the
site of ethnic clashes between rival forces fighting for the region's enormous
mineral resources.