Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have launched an investigation after the mausoleum where Patrice Lumumba’s tooth is being kept was vandalized. Per Reuters, the incident occurred on Monday evening.
Lumumba, who was the DR Congo‘s first democratically elected Prime Minister, was assassinated in January 1961 in a Western-backed overthrow from power. Besides the tooth, there are no other known remains of Lumumba.
In 2022, Belgian authorities returned the tooth to members of Lumumba’s family at an official ceremony at Egmont Palace in the Belgian capital city of Brussels, Face2Face Africa reported.
More than three decades after his death, a senior Belgian policeman, Gerard Soete, disclosed that he and another helper had exhumed the corpses of Lumumba and his two ministers Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, adding that they “hacked them in pieces and put them into the acid.”
In a documentary aired on the German TV channel ARD, Soete showed two teeth that he said had belonged to Lumumba. Soete’s daughter also showed a gold tooth, which she said had belonged to Lumumba, during an interview with a newspaper.
A police officer told Reuters that the coffin containing Lumumba’s tooth was “open and empty.” The officer, however, could not tell if the tooth remained in the coffin. The Central African nation’s culture ministry did not also clearly mention if the tooth had been stolen.
“The site has been secured, and an investigation is underway to determine the facts and identify those responsible,” the ministry said. Lumumba’s daughter Juliana Lumumba Amato also told the news outlet that what happened at the mausoleum was “a despicable and incomprehensible act.”
“Patrice Lumumba sacrificed his life for his country and the Congolese people,” she continued. Juliana also said the government was yet to give her information about the incident, adding that she’s waiting for that.
Since January 17, 1961, no one has been held accountable for the brutal murder of Congo’s independence leader Lumumba. However, all fingers point to multinational perpetrators who sanctioned the elimination of one of Africa’s bravest politicians and independence heroes who stood his ground against colonizers.
Lumumba led the DR Congo to independence on June 30, 1960, after the country was passed on from King Leopold II, who took control of it as his private property in the 1880s, to Belgium in 1908 as a colony.
Lumumba transformed the country in just three months in office and he strongly advocated for a united Africa until his death by firing squad. His death was felt all over Africa and the world as he was filmed in captivity and manhandled by soldiers under the authority of his chief of staff Joseph-Desire Mobutu, who had taken over the country after a coup d’etat.
READ ALSO: The chilling details of Patrice Lumumba’s assassination and how he was dissolved in acid
