Congo’s government says the mausoleum of assassinated independence leader Patrice Lumumba has been vandalized. It is not immediately clear whether Lumumba’s remains — a single gold-capped tooth — were damaged or stolen.
A mausoleum curator told the national press agency that the glass doors had been smashed Monday and the coffin containing the tooth had been broken.
The return of Lumumba’s tooth from former colonizer Belgium in 2022 had been celebrated around Congo, with the tooth taken around the vast country so people could pay their respects.
Lumumba is widely hailed as the nationalist activist who helped to end colonial rule. He became the country’s first prime minister and was assassinated within a year in 1961.
For many in Congo, Lumumba is a symbol of the positive developments the country could have achieved after its independence. Instead, it became mired in decades of dictatorship that drained its vast mineral riches.
Kinshasa,Congo, The Associated Press