On 8 January 1996, a Russian-built Antonov aircraft crashed into a market in Kinshasha city centre, killing at least 237 people in one of the worst tragedies in African aviation history. Thirty years on, the market is bustling once more, but the city has not forgotten the victims.
The Antonov An-32B cargo plane was flying under the name of Air Africa, operated by Moscow Airways and leased to the private airline Scibe Airlift.
Dangerously overweight, according to investigators, it failed to take off from Ndolo airfield and careered into the nearby Type K street market.
While four of its six Russian crew survived the accident, at least 250 people on the ground were killed and several hundred injured.
The authorities put the official death toll at 237 people. Only 66 of the bodies could be identified – the others were burnt beyond recognition.
"I was 15 at the time and still at school, but my whole family was at the market that day," remembers Didier Lumbu Sangwa, today president of the Type K market.
On 8 January 1996, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was still in power, the country was called Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of Congo – and Didier was in class when he heard a huge explosion.
"It really went bang! We were told there had been a crash, so I got there very quickly. Thankfully, thanks to God, my family was alive."
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A place of pilgrimage
Ismaël, who is now in charge of security at the market, was just 12 years old and doing odd jobs on the site when the accident happened. "It was a normal day, as usual," he tells RFI. "And then there was the crash. The plane was supposed to land on the emergency strip, but even in that area there were a lot of people."
He describes scenes of chaos: "I saw the mums and dads who were there every day, that we saw all the time, they were dead. Many vendors and customers lost their lives that day."
Sangwa remembers that the site of the crash and what remained of the market became a place of pilgrimage. "Every 8 January, pastors and priests came to pray for the victims. And when you came at night, people were saying prayers, holding ceremonies. Then a Chinese company, together with the Congolese government, came to rebuild the market."
It took years for life to return to the market. But now there are stalls everywhere, crowds of people, women and men selling fruit and vegetables. There is music, the noise of construction work nearby and customers haggling.
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Continuing the family tradition
For 28-year-old Kalala, the Type K market is his second home. He sells tomatoes there every day, continuing a family tradition going back several generations.
"The disaster happened before I was born," he explains, "but of course I heard about it in my family, at school. My grandmother sold tomatoes here and she was there that day. She died before I was born, so she couldn’t tell me her story, but my parents told me about it."
As you leave the market, you can see the airport runway straight ahead. But while take-offs and landings can still be heard, planes leaving Ndolo now rarely fly over the market.
Since the crash, they head out in the opposite direction, towards the Congo River.
Following the investigation into the crash, operators Scibe Airlift and Air Africa were ordered to pay a total of around 1.4 million US dollars in compensation to people injured and families of victims. However, many say they're still waiting for compensation, three decades after the tragedy.
This article, adapted from the original in French by RFI correspondent Paulina Zidi, has been edited for clarity.
