Death sentences soar in DR Congo after moratorium lifted, report warns

The number of death sentences handed down in the Democratic Republic of Congo has skyrocketed since the government lifted a de facto moratorium on executions in 2024, a campaign group warned Tuesday.

Courts sentenced more than 480 people to death in 2024 and 344 in 2025 — up from just 122 in 2023, according to a report by French NGO Together Against the Death Penalty and several Congolese organisations.

No executions confirmed, but climate of fear

To date, no execution has been officially confirmed. However, the report warns that the multiplication of death sentences is creating an “unprecedented climate of fear” in a country already plagued by decades of conflict.

An investigative mission visited around 20 prisons and identified at least 950 people on death row – nearly double the 500 recorded in 2019.

Overcrowded jails and summary trials

The report describes overcrowded, dilapidated prison facilities where detainees live in “extreme health and food insecurity,” sometimes without even knowing they have been sentenced to death.

Death sentences “are often handed down at the end of summary trials,” the authors wrote.

Effective legal assistance is frequently lacking, and the right to a fair trial is not always guaranteed.

In Congo’s opaque and influence-prone judicial system, avenues of appeal remain inaccessible to those without a lawyer, money or connections.

One third of those interviewed had been convicted for “criminal conspiracy” — a vague and expandable offense, according to the report.