Lusambo is a

territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

in and capital of

Sankuru Sankuru is one of the 21 new provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the 2015 repartitioning. Sankuru, Kasaï-Oriental, and Lomami provinces are the result of the dismemberment of the former Kasaï-Oriental province. Sa ...

province,

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 town lies north of the confluence of the

Sankuru River The Sankuru River is a major river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its approximate length of 1,200 km"Sankuru River" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 10, p. 278. ...

and the

Lubi River Wubi ("Windows-based Ubuntu Installer") is a free software Ubuntu installer, that was the official Windows-based software, from 2008 until 2013, to install Ubuntu from within Windows, to a single file within an existing Windows partition. After ...

. Lusambo is served by

Lusambo Airport Lusambo Airport is an airport serving Lusambo, a town and territory in the Sankuru district of the Kasai-Oriental Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The runway is west of Lusambo and parallels the Sankuru River. See also * * *Transpor ...

. In 1890 Lusambo was chosen by

Paul Le Marinel Paul-Amédée Le Marinel (1858–1912) was an American-born officer in the Belgian army who became an explorer and administrator in the Congo Free State. He was best known for his expedition to Katanga in 1891. Early years Paul-Amédée Le Marine ...

as the main Belgian base in the

Kasai region Kasai or Kasaï may refer to: Places Congo * Congo-Kasaï, one of the four large provinces of Belgian Congo * Kasaï District, in the Kasai-Occidental province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo * Kasai Province, one of the provinces ...

to defend against the threat of Arab or Swahili traders in slaves and ivory who were encroaching from the east. The station would soon become one of the most important military posts of the Congo Free State with a permanent staff of seventeen whites, six hundred native soldiers and four artillery pieces. In 1999 the new Kabila government and its ally, the Zimbabwean government of

Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...

, claimed that U.S. mercenaries were helping Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebel forces who had surrounded 700 Zimbabwean troops near Lusambo during the Second Congo War.

References

Sankuru River 1890 establishments in the Congo Free State Populated places in Sankuru {{DRCongo-geo-stub