Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo – It was Sunday, June 30, two days after M23 rebels seized Kanyabayonga, a strategic city in Lubero territory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu province.
After sunset, horrifying images began making the rounds on social media, showing the wreckage of unknown vehicles and the bodies of two people who were lynched, their bloodied faces making them difficult to identify.
Hours earlier, five vehicles carrying a dozen humanitarian workers had left Lubero territory for Beni, some 100km (60 miles) away, local sources told media. On the road, their convoy was attacked.
Two Congolese aid workers with Tearfund, a foreign NGO, were killed, the organisation said. Five cars and seven motorcycles were also set alight, civil society sources told media.
John Nzabanita Amahoro, 37, who had worked for the United Kingdom-based charity for 10 years as a water, sanitation and hygiene technician, was among those killed.
His younger brother, Jean Claude Nzabanita, said his death has left a gaping hole in his heart.
“My brother was on a work assignment and had nothing to do with the war. I will never see him [again],” he told media.
The whole family had placed their hopes in Amahoro, who was the main breadwinner and the glue that bound the siblings together, he added.
“He cooperated with everyone, but those who killed him didn’t know that thousands of hopes had just been dashed,” he said, shedding tears.
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