Bena Kamba is a community on the

Lomami River The Lomami River is a major tributary of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The river is approximately long. It flows north, west of and parallel to the upper Congo. The Lomami rises in the south of the country, near Kamina ...

Maniema Maniema is one of 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Kindu. Toponymy Henry Morton Stanley explored the area, calling it Manyema.Stanley, H.M., 1899, Through the Dark Continent, London: G. Newnes, Vol. One , ...

province of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. The Limami, which flows northward parallel to the Lualaba or Upper Congo River, is navigable as far south as Bena Kamba. From there, it is not far to travel by land to Riba Riba on the Lualaba, bypassing the rapids lower down. Louis Napoléon Chaltin took this route in his 1893 campaign against Arab slavers. In 1891

Alexandre Delcommune Alexandre Delcommune (6 October 1855 – 7 August 1922) was a Belgian officer of the armed ''Force Publique'' of the Congo Free State who undertook extensive explorations of the country during the early colonial period of the Congo Free State. He ...

chose to travel to the Luabala via Bena-Kamba on his expedition to Katanga, although his route up the Lualaba turned out to be extremely difficult, with many rapids to be negotiated. In January 1900 the New York Times published a report from Southern Presbyterian missionaries stationed at

Luebo Luebo or Lwebo is a town (officially a commune) of Kasai Province in south-central Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is also the seat of the territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to ...

that said fourteen villages had been burned and ninety or more of the local people killed in the Bena Kamba country by

Congo Free State ''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leopo ...

troops. The raid had been undertaken by

Zappo Zap The Zappo Zap were a group of Songye people from the eastern Kasaï region in what today is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They acted as allies of the Congo Free State authorities, while trading in ivory, rubber and slaves. In 1899 they were ...

warriors, who had then engaged in cannibalism. It had been ordered because the local people could not pay the excessive tribute of rubber, ivory, slaves and goats demanded by the Belgians. The town lies on the western boundary of a proposed national park to protect endangered species such as gorillas, which as of 2003 were increasingly being hunted for bushmeat.

References

Populated places in Maniema {{DRCongo-geo-stub