Kash: Mass grave on the outskirts of Kinshasa

This is the first in a series of caricatures the Congolese political caricaturist Kash (aka Kashauri Thembo) is providing exclusively to Congo Siasa.

The Congolese media have been abuzz today about a mass grave that has been found on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Local residents alerted the UN that trucks came in the dead of night on March 19th to bury corpses in a mass grave, and some fear that the bodies may include opposition and civil society activists who have disappeared since recent protests against the government. Since then, Congolese authorities have confirmed that they buried 424 bodies in Maluku, the suburb, but say that the bodies belong to indigents and dead-born babies who were never claimed from the city morgue in Kinshasa.

Two parallel investigations have been launched, one civilian, the other military, and the government has given contradictory signals as to whether they will exhume the bodies.

In the meantime, here is Kash: