{{A general from the Republic of Congo has been arrested in France in connection with 350 refugees who went missing in the central African nation in 1999.}}<\/p>\n
A group representing the families of the refugees praised the arrest on Thursday of General Nobert Dabira, calling it “good news”.<\/p>\n
Marcel Touanga, the head of the group, said the arrest showed the tragedy had not been forgotten.<\/p>\n
“We are fighting for the truth in the face of strong forces because there are links between the organisers of these massacres and some French personalities,” said Touanga, whose 28-year-old son was among the missing.<\/p>\n
Dabira, 64, was accused of torture and kidnapping on a massive scale by examining magistrates after being arrested in the town of Torcy near Paris.<\/p>\n
Dabira, who owns a home in France, was released pending trial after he was charged, newa agencies reported.<\/p>\n
The refugees went missing when they returned to the port city of Brazzaville after fleeing from their country’s civil war to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
Rights groups and relatives say they were tortured and executed upon their return, though Congolese authorities have always denied any massacre.<\/p>\n
Dabira is the former inspector-general of the Congolese army, and since October 2012 has been a high commissioner for the re-integration of former soldiers.<\/p>\n
When contacted, Dabira said he was “totally innocent” and would not leave France during the investigation.<\/p>\n
In 2005, Dabira was one of 15 accused – many of them senior army and police officials – acquitted in the case by a criminal court in Brazzaville.<\/p>\n
France opened its own inquiry into the alleged massacres in 2002.<\/p>\n
Source: AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{A general from the Republic of Congo has been arrested in France in connection with 350 refugees who went missing in the central African nation in 1999.}} A group representing the families of the refugees praised the arrest on Thursday of General Nobert Dabira, calling it “good news”. Marcel Touanga, the head of the group, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9958"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9958"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}