Gédéon Kyungu Mutanga Wa Bafunkwa Kanonga, known as Commander Gédéon, is a

Congolese Congolese or Kongolese may refer to: African peoples * Congolese people (disambiguation) * Kongo people, a Bantu ethnic group who live along the Atlantic coast of Africa from Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo) to Luanda, Angola, primarily defined by ...

warlord who was notable for leading the Mai-Mai Kata Katanga between 2011 and 2016. Kyungu was detained on 16 May 2006. He was sentenced, in 2009, alongside his wife for crimes against humanity during and after the

Second Congo War The Second Congo War,, group=lower-alpha also known as the Great War of Africa or the Great African War and sometimes referred to as the African World War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year a ...

. He was sentenced to death. On 7 September 2011 he escaped from a prison in

Lubumbashi Lubumbashi (former names: (French), ( Dutch)) is the second-largest city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the country's southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia. The capital and principal city of the Haut-Katang ...

after members of his militia opened fire on prison guards. Authorities of the

Katanga province Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba, ...

offered a reward for information leading to his arrest. After his escape from prison, he formed the Mai-Mai Kata Katanga. On 11 October 2016, he surrendered himself along with 100 fighters to Congolese authorities in Malambwe in an effort to end the insecurity in the area. Kyungu again escaped from

house arrest In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if ...

in Lubumbashi on 28 March 2020 when his militia men attacked security forces keeping him incarcerated. Although 31 militiamen were killed and a dozen more were arrested, Kyungu managed to escape. Congolese President

Félix Tshisekedi Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo (; born 13 June 1963) is a Congolese politician who has been the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 24 January 2019. He is the leader of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS ...

issued an order to arrest Kyungu two days after his escape.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kyungu, Gedeon Second Congo War Human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Democratic Republic of the Congo people convicted of crimes against humanity Democratic Republic of the Congo prisoners sentenced to death Prisoners sentenced to death by the Democratic Republic of the Congo People from Katanga Province 21st-century Democratic Republic of the Congo people