President Tshisekedi interrupts his stay in Europe following the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano

Kinshasa, May 23^th, 2021 (CPA).- The President of the Republic, Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, has decided to interrupt his stay in Europe and return to the country on Sunday in order to supervise the coordination of aid to the populations of the areas threatened by the he eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano, which occurred on Saturday, May 22^nd in the early evening in Goma, in the province of North Kivu, announced the Presidency of the Republic on his twitter account. The President of the Republic, who shows all his compassion and support for the local populations, says he is following « very closely the evolution of the security and humanitarian situation in North Kivu ». To this end, he invited the population of Goma to show prudence and solidarity in the face of this natural disaster. As a reminder, Nyiragongo is a stratovolcano or composite volcano (volcano made up of many layers (strata) of hardened lava and (tephras) from the Great Rift Valley located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located in the Virunga Mountains in about twenty kilometers north of the city of Goma and Lake Kivu and west of the border with Rwanda. The last eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, one of Africa’s most active volcanoes, dates back to 2002. It left 250 people dead and 120,000 homeless in Goma. Its lava flows are among the fastest in the world. Vulcanologists have observed for five years the same activity of the volcano as during the periods preceding its eruptions of 1977 and 2002. Goma is home to a large contingent of peacekeepers and many staff of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO). It is also the base of many NGOs and other international organizations.