(JED/IFEX) – JED voiced dismay at the killing on 9 August 2007 of Patrick Kikuku Wilungula, photojournalist with the Agence Congolaise de Presse (ACP) in North Kivu province and the Kinshasa-based weekly “L’Hebdo de l’Est”, in Goma, eastern Congo. According to information obtained by JED from local witnesses, Kikuku was shot and killed near his […]
(JED/IFEX) – JED voiced dismay at the killing on 9 August 2007 of Patrick Kikuku Wilungula, photojournalist with the Agence Congolaise de Presse (ACP) in North Kivu province and the Kinshasa-based weekly “L’Hebdo de l’Est”, in Goma, eastern Congo.
According to information obtained by JED from local witnesses, Kikuku was shot and killed near his home in Goma by unidentified gunmen. The identity of the killers and motive of the crime remain unknown.
According to the same sources, the killers only took his camera and left other valuables, including his mobile phone and cash.
JED urges the Congolese government to conduct a serious investigation of this murder and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
This is the fifth killing of a media professional in DR Congo since November 2005. Franck Ngyke Kangundu and his wife Hélène Mpaka were killed on 3 November 2005 in Kinshasa; Mutombo Kayilu, maintenance techinician, was killed on 29 March 2006 in Kisanga; Louis Mwamba Bapuwa, freelance journalist, was killed on 8 July 2006 in his Kinshasa/Matete home, and Serge Maheshe Kasole, Radio Okapi news editor, was killed on 13 June 2007.
Less than two months since the killing of Maheshe, this murder took place in a part of DR Congo that is prone to increasing insecurity.
