A community radio presenter has been shot dead near his home in Kirumba, North Kivu. Media watchdog, Journaliste en danger, is calling for an investigation into this, the 6th killing of a journalist in the Kivus since 2007, and demanding concrete action to prevent escalation of violence against journalists in the run up to elections.
KAMBALE MUSONIA, 29, a journalist with the Community Radio of Lubero South, a radio station transmitting at Kirumba (140 kms from Goma, capital of the province of North Kivu) in eastern DRC, was killed on Tuesday 21 June 2011, a few yards from his home, by armed men who shot him three times point blank in the chest.
Journaliste en danger (JED) report several testimonies, which state that the journalist was attacked on his way home from work and link the killing to a broadcast made four days earlier wherein Kambale hosted a phone-in show called “Kirumba Tshin Toka” (Kirumba Rise Up). During this program, speakers denounced the climate of insecurity in their community created by a gang of armed robbers made up of civilians but operating with the complicity of the police.
It is not certain whether this was the reason for the killing, according to the radio station manager. Kambale was also a mobile phone vendor and the attackers stole his mobile phone and money according to the Association Free Press
JED are calling for provincial authorities to immediately open a serious investigation to find and punish the perpetrators. They also call on the Congolese authorities, with the approach of elections, to make every effort, through concrete actions to stop escalation of violence against journalists.
For more information on violence and attacks against journalists see this UN report from February 2011
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