Kinshasa – The Chabad movement celebrated 20 years of presence in central Africa on Tuesday with a gala event at a Congo hotel, just two days after an attempted coup at the country’s presidential palace and a parallel attack at the Kokolo military camp.
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Hundreds of guests attended the celebration at the Grand Hotel in Kinshasha, Congo. Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Executive Vice President of American Friends of Lubavitch came in from Washington, D.C. to take part in the event, joined by other members of the movement who flew in from across the world..
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Kinshasa was rated as one of Africa’s most dangerous cities in terms of crime. Since the Second Congo War, the city has been striving to recover from disorder, with many gangs hailing from Kinshasa’s slums. Muggings, robberies, rape, kidnapping and gang violence are common[9]. Kinshasa’s homicide rate is estimated to be as high as 112 homicides per 100,000 [10].
[edit] Street childrenStreet children[11][12], often orphaned, are subject to abuse by the police and military. Of the estimated 20,000 children – up to the age of eighteen – living rough in Kinshasa’s street, almost a quarter are beggars, some are street vendors and about a third have some kind of employment[13]. Some are there as fallout from the times of war, others are accused of witchcraft[14] and have become outcasts[15][16][17].
Police regularly round up street children, to an uncertain fate; there are recorded incidents of children being shot dead by police for minor misdemeanours[18].
our community is very lucky to have rabbi Shemtov in washington and all over the world–thank you Chabad!