Assassination of Patrice Lumumba

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Patrice Lumumba, inaugural Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo, Léopoldville and leader of the Congolese National Movement (MNC), was assassinated on January 17, 1961 in Katanga, near Elizabethville, amidst the Congo Crisis that began in July 1960. Following the September 1960 coup led by Mobutu Sese Seko, Lumumba and his political retinue were detained by Mobutu's forces in December 1960. After a month of imprisonment near Léopoldville, he was transferred to Belgium-aligned Katanga in mid-January. The order to kill Lumumba came from the separatist Katangan authorities of Moïse Tshombe, in collaboration with Belgian officers. In the presence of Tshombe and other Katangan officials, Lumumba was executed, alongside Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, by a Katangan firing squad led by Belgian contract officers. Lumumba's body was ultimately dismembered and dissolved in acid. Prior to his assassination, Western powers sought to remove Lumumba from power. In October 1960, Belgian minister...

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