In Lualaba, in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a train accident left at least 61 dead and 52 injured. A tragedy for which no one wants to take responsibility.
Every year, rail accidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) claim dozens of lives. During the night of Thursday to Friday, a train derailment in Kolwezi, in the province of Lualaba, poco x3 pro price tunisia caused a tragedy. “The balance sheet is 61 dead, men, women and children. As well as 52 wounded who were evacuated”, said Marc Manyonga Ndambo, director of infrastructure at the National Railway Company of Congo (SNCC), on Saturday.
It was a train of 15 cars, 12 of which were empty. He was heading from Luen to the mining town of Tenke, near Kolwezi, the capital of Lualaba in southern DRC. The head of the SNCC, despite the tragedy, made it clear that the hundreds of passengers were "illegal".
“Some of the bodies were still trapped in the wagons that had fallen into the ravines,” Manyonga added.
If the head of the railway company specified the time of the accident and assured that 7 of the 15 wagons had fallen into the ravines, he never specified the reasons for the derailment. "My team is working hard to clear the track before Monday," he said.
On Saturday, seven bodies were found by the families, "53 others are still at the scene of the accident," said Jean-Serge Lumu, a provincial official in Kolwezi.
These trains that derail in the DRC
Why was the freight train carrying passengers? This is one of the questions that arises after this tragedy.
Due to lack of passenger trains and passable roads, many passengers take freight trains. People use freight trains on this Congolese section of the Benguela Railway (CFB) to get around southern DRC.
The same railway experienced another deadly train derailment in 2019. At the time, 24 people were dead. Also in October 2021, 9 people died in Mutshatsha, a little further west.
Maintaining the trains, some of which date back to the early 20th century, costs more money than installing infrastructure suitable for the region. In Lualaba, the resumption of the railways is mainly due to the presence in the province of the Tenke Fungurume mine, the largest copper and cobalt mine in the DRC and in the world.
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The Chinese entrepreneur or the SNCC, whose fault is it?
The Lualaba Railway is part of the second largest railway network in the world, the CFB, which connects South Africa, Angola and Tanzania via the DRC and Zambia.
The Congolese section is the only one not controlled by the private company Caminho de ferro de Benguela (CFB SARL). The failure of the concession in the 1990s, and its takeover by the SNCC, in fact attributed responsibility for the maintenance of the railway to the national company.
The last rehabilitation of the CFB rails took place between 2006 and 2018, by the Chinese construction company China Railway 20th Bureau Group (CR20). The Chinese entrepreneur also needed to set up more passenger trains. But since the maiden voyage between Benguela in Angola and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where have the passenger trains gone?
The rehabilitation of the CFB, after the end of the Congolese civil war, is China's second largest infrastructure project in Africa after the Tazara (Tanzania – Zambia). As the contract between CR20 and the SNCC lacks transparency, it is difficult to say who exactly is responsible for the integrity of these railways.
However, the statements of local officials show that everyone now blames themselves.