The United States (US) Embassy in the Democratic Republic of Congo have revealed that Congolese authorities have refused to release information about the American citizens who were arrested in last month’s coup d’etat.
On Monday, the US embassy revealed that the Congolese authorities have also pushed their efforts to provide access to Americans following calls for help from a family seeking to know if their son was alive.
The Congolese army has released the names of three Americans accused of playing a role in the attack carried out by Christian Malanga, a little-known opposition figure, on 19 May 2024.
The State Department says one of its top priorities is to provide consular assistance to Americans detained abroad, including regular visits to ensure medical care as well as help find an English-speaking lawyer.
“We have asked the DRC authorities to grant consular access to any U.S. citizen who may have been detained and we have not received it to date,” U.S. Embassy spokesman Greg Porter said in an email to The Associated Press.
The Congolese authorities have thus not reacted to the US Embassy’s communication and also refused to say whether the Americans would be appearing in court, only stating that more information would be provided at a later date.
Malanga, who had once declared himself DRC’s president in exile, live-streamed the attempted overthrow of the government alongside his Utah-born son, Marcel Malanga, as they threatened President Felix Tshisekedi from inside the presidential palace before the Congolese army the former was shot dead for resisting arrest.
For now, the fate of the detained Americans remains unclear while a video which has been circulated on social networks shows Marcel tied up and bloodied as he is taken into custody and also appears in the video with a second American, 21-year-old Tyler Thompson Jr., whose family revealed that the two had been playing football together in high school.
Thompson flew to Africa with Marcel for what his family believed to have beeen a vacation trip with all expenses paid by Malanga.
