Return of Lumumba’s tooth delayed

The return of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba’s tooth has been delayed by a new wave of Covid-19 in the DRC. A ceremony had been planned for 21 June, but President Félix Tshisekedi said ‘we have to prioritise the health of our compatriots’. BBC News reports that he said the country's hospitals were full and the number of cases and deaths were rising ‘exponentially’. Lumumba led Congo to independence from Belgium in June 1960 and became the country's first Prime Minister. However, he was overthrown and jailed before being killed by firing squad in January 1961. In 2002, Belgium admitted responsibility for its part in the killing, in which the CIA is widely believed to have played a role amid the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. A Belgian policeman has admitted dissolving Lumumba's body in acid, but said he had kept a tooth. A Belgian court last year ordered the tooth to be returned to the DRC even though no DNA tests were carried out because it could have destroyed the tooth. Tshisekedi has said a mausoleum would be built to the independence hero.

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