Head of NGO taken hostage in DRC

Also in Goma, two other members of an NGO were threatened with kidnapping and another was intimidated by uniformed men

The head of a local aid agency, Balisi Kapumba, has been kidnapped by armed men in the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said Monday.

Kapumba, of Solidarity Action for Peace and Development (ASPD), was "kidnapped on Friday by men in uniform from his home in Goma," the chief town in Nord-Kivu province of the DR Congo, said Thomas D’acquin Muiti, the acting head of Civil Society which regroups a number of non-governmental organisations in the province.

Also in Goma, two other members of an NGO were threatened with kidnapping on Friday, and another saw the entrance to his home "forced by uniformed men" on Sunday night, Muiti told AFP.

Last Tuesday, Sylvestre Bwira, the chairman of civil society in Nord-Kivu's Masisi territory, was kidnapped by uniformed men on a road and has not been seen or heard from since.

Muiti said that Bwira frequently received death threats after the publication of a report denouncing insecurity in the Masisi and a parallel administration set up in the territory by former rebels of the National Congress for the Defence of the People, which has rallied to the Kinshasa government.

"All the signatories of the report that led to Mr Sylvestre Bwira's abduction are also threatened with kidnapping and are living in hiding," Muiti said.

Several armed groups have been active since the 1990s in Nord-Kivu and they are regularly accused of committing violence against the civilian population. Hundreds of thousands of villagers in the province have been displaced by the unrest.