On October 23, 1996, in Bukavu, Mons. Christophe Munzihirwa was captured by the forces of the AFDL (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo) led by Laurent Kabila. The rebels killed him. The streets were deserted, the people were holed up in their homes, and corpses lay in the streets of the city. After twenty-nine years, the streets of Bukavu continue to witness violence and bloodshed.

Mgr. Christophe Munzihirwa was born in 1926 in Lukumbo, a small village in South Kivu, in the eastern region in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A parish priest at the cathedral of Bukavu in the early 1960s, he joined the Jesuits in 1963 and moved to Belgium to study social sciences and economics at the University of Leuven. He returned to the Congo in 1969 and his ministry soon became that of a “man for difficult situations”.
A chaplain at the University of Kinshasa, when Mobutu in 1971 ordered all the students and seminarians to serve in the army for two years, he asked to be enlisted and joined the army as a sergeant. From 1980 to 1986 he was the provincial of the Jesuits in Central Africa (Rwanda, Congo, Burundi).

Our Lady of Peace Cathedral of Bukavu. In 1994, Mons. Christophe Munzihirwa became the archbishop of Bukavu. Photo: Timothee Rolin

On November 9, 1986, he was consecrated bishop and sent to Kosongo as coadjutor of Mgr Timothée Pirigisha. From the beginning of the 90’s he was apostolic vicar of Bukavu and in 1994 he became archbishop. In those difficult years for the Congo, he participated with compassion in the tragedy of the people of the Great Lakes region, as a man who truly loves his neighbour.
After the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Mgr. Munzihirwa became a true advocate for the thousands of Hutu refugees who flooded his diocese. He firmly believed that only a few had committed atrocities against the Tutsis and that most were innocent victims. He spoke with an evangelical voice, calling for reconciliation beyond ethnicity.
Faced with this tragedy, he said: “In these days, when mass graves are still being dug, when misery and disease can be found for several thousand kilometres, on the roads and paths, in the fields, we are disturbed by Christ’s cry from the cross: ‘Father, forgive them’. God’s mercy, which breaks the chain of revenge, calls for a change in everyone, whatever faction they belong to. It is the only thing capable of breaking once and for all the infernal spiral of revenge”.

On October 23, 1996, Mgr Munzihirwa was brutally murdered.

Many compared him to Oscar Romero, a bishop and martyr in El Salvador. When Munzihirwa was bishop of Kasongo and Mobutu ordered the town to be looted, believing that some rebel soldiers had taken refuge there, the bishop said: “I see soldiers in front of me, I see the colonel. Stop oppressing the people. I ask you; I command you: stop!” The commander wanted to arrest him and he said fearlessly, “I am ready, arrest me”.His commitment, his passion and his love for the people made him a problem for those in power, because of his total opposition to any form of violence, but also because of his absolute devotion to others and his constant search for the truth.
In Bukavu, those were days of death and anguish. The military and civilian authorities of the eastern Kivu region, the last remnants of Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship left the city in the hand of Rwandan soldiers who killed whoever was in sight. The perpetrators were members of the Rwandan Tutsi minority, who accused Mobutu of giving shelter to several thousand militiamen among the hutu refugees.

In recent months, over 400,000 people have been displaced by fighting in South and North Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. UNOCHA/Francis Mweze

On October 23, 1996, Mgr Munzihirwa was brutally murdered in his town. His body was found in a small square called Nyawera. The rebels had killed everyone who passed by on foot or in a car.
Exactly one week earlier, after a declaration on the real conditions of the region and the betrayal of the Congolese authorities, the archbishop said: “Today I’ve forfeited my life. I’ve signed my death sentence”. His martyrdom was not sudden but the result of a personal itinerary, of a total faith in his Lord, of a constant and hard search, of a testimony which resulted in giving his life. He said that a Christian must bear witness of his faith, he must “give” even when facing “the most hopeless human tragedies, because there is not a moment in which the Gospel can be put aside. It is the only way in which the life of a Christian can become a sign of hope”.
Twenty-nine years have passed since the murder of Mgr. Munzihirwa. A new wave of violence has begun. Last February, the M23 rebels, supported by Rwanda, entered Bukavu.  In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes as the rebels advance.

Francis Mutesa