Remains of DR Congo’s independence hero returned from Belgium

By James Tasamba

KIGALI, Rwanda (AA) - More than 61 years after his assassination, the remains of the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, have been returned to his homeland from Belgium.

Draped in the national flag colors, the coffin containing the remains of the slain Congolese independence hero was brought to the capital Kinshasa via a Congo Airways aircraft.

On Monday, the Belgian government had returned the remains, including a golden tooth and finger bones, to the family of Lumumba.

The remains will be buried at a mausoleum in the capital Kinshasa on June 30.

Lumumba, an icon of Africa’s fight for independence, was assassinated in 1961 by a group of Belgian mercenaries.

In 1999, former Belgian police chief Gerard Soete admitted publicly to being involved in Lumumba’s killing and dissolution of his body in acid.

He also said that he kept his golden tooth and finger parts as “a kind of hunting trophy.”

Soete died a year later without being prosecuted, and the relics were only taken away from his daughter in 2016 after she showed them in a TV interview.

Lumumba’s daughter, Julianna, requested the restitution of her father's remains in 2020.