{"id":46697,"date":"2026-09-28T16:06:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=46697"},"modified":"2026-09-28T16:06:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T14:06:56","slug":"drc-declares-three-days-of-national-mourning-after-deadly-military-plane-crash","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/drc-declares-three-days-of-national-mourning-after-deadly-military-plane-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"DRC declares three days of national mourning after deadly military plane crash \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has declared three days of national mourning following a fatal plane crash in Kwango province that killed 17 people, including two senior military generals.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft, traveling from Kikwit to Kinshasa, suffered a severe technical fault before attempting an emergency landing and crashing into a residential area in Kenge. Among the deceased were Lieutenant General Joseph Mutombo Katalayi Tiende, President of the High Military Court, and Lieutenant General Lucien-Ren\u00e9 Likulia Bakumi, the Army\u2019s Auditor general.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The tragedy coincides with news of another disaster in eastern DRC, where at least 12 people died after a passenger and cargo vessel capsized on Lake Kivu near Idjwi Island. Transport authorities have suspended the operating certificate of the air carrier involved pending a full safety investigation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":43320,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-46697","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"DRC begins three days of national mourning for plane crash victims ","published_date":"2026-09-28 16:06:27","news_description":"DRC begins three days of national mourning for plane crash victims ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46698,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46697\/revisions\/46698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=46697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}