Kinshasa residents terrified by rising number of public transportation kidnappings

Twenty-seven people were sentenced to death, only to have their sentences commuted to life in prison, at the end of a kidnapping trial that took place between July 5 and 7 in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where capital punishment is no longer carried out. The members of this kidnapping network, which included four police officers, were found guilty of kidnapping a number of locals who climbed into their fake taxis, stealing their valuables and holding them for ransom. The group was also found responsible for killing a number of their victims.

The case has been extensively covered by the Congolese media. Images of the arrests were circulated online. The police also organised a strange sort of press conference where they lined up the 27 people arrested to show them off to the press and the Ministry of the Interior (videos on Facebook and TikTok). 

“They drugged me with a handkerchief and then beat me”

Romulus Mwamba works as an independent tour operator and lives in the Limete neighborhood. He believes that the group recently sentenced to prison are just a “tiny percentage” of the kidnappers operating in the capital. He should know. Mwamba was kidnapped on July 1 and survived a terrifying ordeal – and he didn’t recognise any of his attackers among those convicted. 

I was coming back from a meeting with a client in the Kasa-Vubu neighborhood and I got into a communal taxi in Victoire to head to my next meeting. It was nearly full. There were two boys and a girl in the third row and two hefty guys in the second row. I got in front. Very soon after we set off, I realised that I wasn’t going towards the right address. 

Mwamba decided to text his brother-in-law. 

“I’m in a taxi and I don’t feel safe,” he messaged him on WhatsApp.

Romy also managed to film a quick video of the people in the vehicule, which he also sent to his brother-in-law. 

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However, at one point, the man next to me noticed that I was filming. He took my phone and threw it on the ground, trying to break it. I tried to break a window and started making noise to get people’s attention. But I didn’t manage to struggle for long because the people behind me grabbed me and drugged me with a handkerchief. Then they put me in the back so they could beat me up. 

Mwamba woke up several hours later. He was lying on the side of the road in a town called Maluku, more than an hour and a half away from his departure point. He was covered in bruises. A passerby helped him to call his family, who came to pick him up.

They stole my house keys, my watch, my sneakers and my wallet, which contained a large sum of money belonging to my client. Thankfully, he was understanding.  

Since then, his family has filed a complaint with the authorities. Mwamba is terrified to take public transportation. 

What happened to me was in the middle of the day, with lots of people around. Since then, I don’t want to leave my house. 

“I tried to say to them, ‘let me live, take my car’ but I couldn’t get it out”

The issue of kidnappings taking place in public transportation isn’t new. In early 2022, Jeannot Kabuayi [Editor’s note: this is a pseudonym, used because the investigation is still underway] fell victim to an attempted kidnapping. This time, the modus operandi was a bit different:

I was driving alone around 1am along the 30-Juin boulevard in the centre of town when I came across a taxi ketch [Editor’s note: a type of communal taxi common in Kinshasa.] Inside, there was a woman doubled over in pain along with two young men. I stopped and asked what was going on. They told me that they were bringing the young woman to the hospital but that the taxi had broken down. They asked if I could bring her to Diamant hospital. Acting as a good Samaritan, I agreed to take her.

A few seconds later, Jeannot was being strangled by an electrical cord around his neck, cutting into his flesh. The people tried to take his car.

I tried to say to them, “let me live, take my car” but I couldn’t get it out. Finally, they got ahold of the steering wheel but I hit the button to cut the motor. We lost control of the car and ended up in a ditch on the side of the road. A jeep full of police officers pulled up but the criminals got out of the car and climbed back into the ketch, which had been following us, and left. 

They stole all of the valuables that Kabuayi had with him. He wasn’t able to pick up his wrecked car until the next day, after getting a check-up at the hospital. 

Kabuayi still has a scar around his neck where the cord cut into his flesh. He no longer wants to take a ketch or help anyone in distress on the road. He filed a complaint with the authorities but no charges have been filed. 

“When the bus started, about half of the people on board got out weapons”

Kidnappings are also taking place on the city’s minibuses. Another Kinshasa resident, who wanted to remain anonymous for safety reasons, told us about what happened to his friend in late June. She was kidnapped from a minibus in the Masina neighborhood on the east side of town.

There were 12 of them in the minibus. When the bus started, about half of the people on board got out weapons. They told everyone else to put their hands in the air before covering people with clothing so they couldn’t see where they were going.  

The young woman managed to send him a panicked voice message. He shared it with our team. 

“Please, pray for me. […] I just lifted up the sheet to record this message and I already sent it to the big sister, to everyone. We were headed towards Kapela [Editor’s note: a neighbourhood in the western part of Kinshasa], […] We are still going, I don’t know where we are.” 

She sent that message at about 5pm. After that, he wasn’t able to contact her. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that she reappeared back in her neighbourhood. She said she was finally released around 4am. 

She was blindfolded and he [the kidnapper] took her by the hand. “Keep going, if you turn around, I will kill you,” he said. She was dropped in a deserted location and it took her ages to walk back to her house.

A growing fear about public transportation in Kinshasa

Stories of kidnappings as well the extensive media coverage of the trial of the 27 kidnappers has created growing fear among the population about using public transportation. Some people have started filming whenever they are in a taxi as a security measure. 

The video below shows a man hailing a taxi in the north of Kinshasa. He examines the other passengers and sees that there is only one open spot inside. He refuses to get in and the driver drives off. 

“When kidnappers get shun[ned]”, commented Cedoux Muke, the person who filmed this video. Our team spoke to him and he said he was sure that he narrowly avoided kidnappers even though he doesn’t have proof. 

“That taxi didn’t have plates and the people inside seemed strange to me,” he said. 

Muke says that the growing fear about kidnappings has led, in some cases, to mob justice in his neighbourhood, Kimbanseke. 

On July 7, police in my neighbourhood arrested a mama [Editor’s note: name used to refer to an older woman] with seven children in her car. She was accused of working with the driver to try and kidnap them. A lot of people tried to get her out of the police’s grasp in order to beat her up. 

The recent spate of kidnappings has also fed into rumours of organ trafficking. Terrified people are sharing information about these rumours in WhatsApp groups, often citing as “proof” videos taken out of context showing people cut up as if to extract organs. One of the videos that has been circulating was not filmed in the DRC – it shows the revenge killing of a police officer and his son carried out by a Mexican cartel, and has been circulating online for years. 

Nothing but “ordinary security issues,” according to police 

On July 4, Information Minister Patrick Muyaya told people “not to fall victim to rumours” about what he called “ordinary security issues”.

“The police is working day and night to make sure that the criminals, wherever they operate, are captured,” he said. “That’s also the case for kidnappers.” He added that police hadn’t seen proof of “organ trafficking, which is being talked about on social media and in certain circles”.

Police in Kinshasa reported a dozen or so cases of kidnappings from public transport in June alone. It is likely that more occurred but were not reported.  

Our team contacted the head of police in Kinshasa but didn’t get a response.