Belgium Returns Lumumba's Remains to Family

Voice of America
20 Jun 2022, 23:35 GMT+10

The tooth of assassinated Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first democratically elected leader, is scheduled to be handed over to his family Monday.

The Belgium government will hand over the tooth to Lumumba's family in an official ceremony in Brussels.

Lumumba elected as Congo's first democratically elected prime minister in 1960 and was hugely popular with his countrymen and largely unpopular with European and American powers.

The Congo had been a Belgium colony.

At his inauguration ceremony in 1960, Lumumba spoke in graphic detail about the atrocities the Congolese people had suffered under their Belgium colonizer, angering Belgian King Baudouin who was present.

Lumumba was in office for less than a year when Col Joseph Mobutu seized power in a coup.

Shortly after the coup, the young prime minister faced a firing squad. Belgian police officer Gerard Soete and his brother took charge of the grizzly details of dismembering and dissolving Lumumba's body, according to Belgian writer Ludo De Witte, the author of the book "The Assassination of Lumumba."

Decades later, in 1999, Soete came forward and acknowledged that he had Lumumba's gold crowned tooth.

VOA News
Subscribe

Watch latest videos

News RELEASES

Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Nigeria Sun.

More Information

27 ℃

Fair in Cotonou

International

Section

US sanctions causes 90 percent drop in chips sent to Russia

WASHINGTON D.C.: U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has said that since the U.S. and its allies imposed sanctions on Moscow ...

Tokyo suffers through heatwave, worst since 1875

Tokyo, Japan: On June 28, Japan baked under intense heat for a fourth successive day, with temperatures breaking nearly 150-year-old ...

Law allowing non-citizens to vote ruled unconstitutional in New York

ALBANY, New York: A New York state judge has struck down a recent law giving 800,000 non-citizen New York City ...

Arab states reaching energy targets with alternative solar, wind power

DUBAI, UAE: The Arab states have built significant amounts of solar and wind power installations, and are in line to ...

Brexit seen as driving force behind Scotland independence vote

LONDON, England: A second referendum on Scottish independence is set to be held in October 2023. The Scottish government, led ...

Tuvalu pulls out of UN ocean conference after China blocks Taiwan

LISBON, Portugal: Tuvalu Foreign Minister Simon Kofe walked out of the opening cermonies of this week's United Nations Ocean Conference ...

Africa

Section