High-ranking RCD official dies

A senior official of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD), General Celestine Ilunga, has died. Ilunga, who was ‘Minister for Defence’ of the RCD-Goma and Acting-Governor of Kasai Province before his death - as well as the last Minister of the Interior and Security in the regime of former Zairean president President Mobutu Sese Seko - died in South Africa last week, the RCD said. “He left Goma last week to check on his family in South Africa in good health. We are told he complained to his wife that he was not feeling well and was taken to hospital where he collapsed and died, the rebels’ spokesman, Kin-Kiey Mulumba, told IRIN on Monday. The Ugandan ‘New Vision’ reported on Saturday that Ilunga was murdered in the eastern Congolese town of Goma, “where a senior Rwandan official, Lt-Col Wilson Rutayisire was recently found dead.” It also reported that Ilunga had strong links with the South African government and was “often at loggerheads with the Goma rebel group and Kigali authorities”. The ‘New Vision’ report was “stupid and disrespectful,” Mulumba said on Monday.