DRC government advised to step up efforts in search of missing UN team

Six members of a United Nations Group of Experts team including an American, a Swede and four Congolese who went missing on March 12, 2017 in the Democratic Republic of Congo have still not been found.

The Human Rights Watch on Saturday called on the Congolese government to “fully cooperate with the UN and other international investigators” to locate the team who were last seen in the Kasai Central province.

They are American Michael Sharp; Swede Zaida Catalán; Congolese interpreter Betu Tshintela; Isaac Kabuayi, a driver; and two unidentified motorbike drivers.

“We are extremely worried about the missing UN team,” Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch, Ida Sawyer said.

The Congolese government announced on March 13 that Sharp and Catalán had “fallen into the hands of unidentified negative forces,” without providing additional information.

The team was investigating widespread human rights abuses near the remote village of Bunkonde, south of the provincial capital, Kananga.

More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced from their homes since large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August 2016.