On 17 January, Belgium was due to officially return a tooth from DRC’s former Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to his relatives. It had had been taken from his body following his assassination in 1961. The Congolese presidency says the ceremony has been postponed due to Covid-19 restrictions.
On 5 January, the Congolese presidency announced that Belgium’s restitution ceremony of a ‘relic’ belonging to Lumumba had been postponed to June 2022.
Lumumba, a hero of independence, became the DRC’s first head of government in June 1960, but was overthrown in a coup a few months later. Separatists from the Katanga region executed him on 17 January 1961, with the support of mercenaries from the former Belgian colonial power.
