Kenya Airways urges release of employees detained in DR Congo

Kenya Airways (KQ) on Friday called for the release of two of its employees detained by a military intelligence unit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The KQ employees, who work at the company’s airport office in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, were arrested on April 19 by the Military Detection of Anti-Homeland Activities (DEMIAP) allegedly because of “missing custom documentation on valuable cargo”, the airline said.

According to the KQ statement, a military court in the DRC had promised their release on Thursday, but they were still being detained.

“This is a serious infringement of the rights of the two Kenyans and a worrying breach of the diplomatic principles upon which… Kenya-DRC relations are founded,” Nelson Koech, chairperson of a parliamentary committee covering defence, intelligence and foreign relations, said Friday.

The airline’s CEO Allan Kilavuka said the reason for the employees’ arrest was “alleged to be missing custom documentation on valuable cargo that was to be transported on a KQ flight on April 12th, 2024.”

“However, we wish to state that the said cargo was not uplifted or accepted by KQ due to incomplete documentation.”

This cargo, whose contents are not specified, “was still in the baggage section being cleared by customs when the security team arrived and alleged that KQ was transporting goods without customs clearance.”

“All efforts to explain to the military officers that KQ had not accepted the cargo because of incomplete documentation proved futile.”

The employees were held “incommunicado” until Tuesday, when embassy officials and a KQ team were allowed to visit them.

Although a military tribunal ordered the release of the two people on Thursday, the DRC authorities are “still holding them incommunicado…in a military intelligence facility,” KQ said.

The DRC’s military intelligence service, DEMIAP, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

KQ was founded in 1977 following the demise of East African Airways and now flies to 45 destinations across the globe, 37 of them in Africa.