Bolenge is a village located in 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 ...

. It is located exactly where the geographic

equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...

intersects the

Congo River The Congo River ( kg, Nzâdi Kôngo, french: Fleuve Congo, pt, Rio Congo), formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second largest river in the world by discharge ...

, formerly the Zaire River.

Henry Morton Stanley Sir Henry Morton Stanley (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa Cen ...

reputedly stopped at Bolenge during his epic voyage across central Africa during the 19th century. In (the late 1890s) 1884 a mission station was established at nearby Wangata by the British Livingstone Inland Mission then moved to Bolenge in 1891 by the American Baptist Missionary Union

Baptists Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

. In the 1890s the local missionaries Murphy, Sjoblom and Banks were pioneers in bringing world attention to atrocities by Belgian King Leopold's Congo Free State. (Reference "Mission and State in the Congo" by David Lagergren 1970.) This mission was acquired in 1899 by the American

protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

church called the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Eventually a network of mission stations were established throughout the Equateur province of what was at the time known as the

Belgian Congo The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colo ...

. Each mission station had a hospital and various schools and other social and economic programs. In 1960 Congo became independent and responsibility for operation of the missions was handed over to local church authorities. Throughout the 1960s until the late 1990s Zaire (as it was then known) underwent a long period of dissolution of much of its infrastructure. Schools, roads, hospitals and commerce in general were severely degraded. In the 1990s

Zaire Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...

underwent a period of dissolution of the existing dictatorship under

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ...

and endured a period of quasi anarchy and several multinational and civil wars. In 1997 there was a massacre of

Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the prin ...

refugees perpetrated by military forces at a fishing/trading village near Bolenge. Several hundred individuals were reportedly killed with survivors of the initial attack hunted down and killed in and around Bolenge and the nearby city of Mbandaka. In 1992 Bolenge was attacked by elements of the Zairian army. The hospital and schools and private homes were all pillaged, resulting in the evacuation of the several foreign

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

families who were living at Bolenge. In July 2005, Bolenge was again attacked by other military personnel in revenge for the murder of a soldier at the nearby military camp. The hospital was again sacked with the loss of most equipment and medicines. Nearby Bolenge (about five kilometers south) is the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Mission of Iyonda. This mission was the site of a large leprosarium and is reportedly where the British author

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

spent time in gathering material for his novel ''

A Burnt-Out Case ''A Burnt-Out Case'' (1960) is a novel by English author Graham Greene, set in a leper colony on the upper reaches of a tributary of the Congo River in Africa. Plot summary Querry, a famous architect who is fed up with his celebrity, no longer ...

'', which is set at Iyonda in the 1950s.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in the province of Équateur