Bena Kamba is a community on the
Lomami River
The Lomami River (, , ) is a major tributary of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The river is approximately long. It flows north, west of and parallel to the upper Congo.
The Lomami rises in the south of the country, near ...
in
Maniema
Maniema Province (''Jimbo la Maniema'', in Swahili) is one of 26 provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Its capital is Kindu. The 2020 population was estimated to be 2,856,300.
Toponymy
Henry Morton Stanley explored the area ...
province of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
.
The Lomami, which flows northward parallel to the
Lualaba or Upper Congo River, is navigable as far south as Bena Kamba. From there, it is not far to travel by land to
Riba Riba on the Lualaba, bypassing the rapids lower down.
Louis Napoléon Chaltin took this route in his 1893 campaign against Arab slavers.
In 1891
Alexandre Delcommune
Alexandre Delcommune (6 October 1855 – 7 August 1922) was a Belgian officer of the armed '' Force Publique'' of the Congo Free State who undertook extensive explorations of the country during the early colonial period of the Congo Free State. H ...
chose to travel to the Luabala via Bena-Kamba on his expedition to
Katanga, although his route up the Lualaba turned out to be extremely difficult, with many rapids to be negotiated.
In January 1900 the New York Times published a report from Southern Presbyterian missionaries stationed at
Luebo that said fourteen villages had been burned and ninety or more of the local people killed in the Bena Kamba country by
Congo Free State
The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...
troops. The raid had been undertaken by
Zappo Zap warriors, who had then engaged in cannibalism. It had been ordered because the local people could not pay the excessive tribute of rubber, ivory, slaves and goats demanded by the Belgians.
The town lies on the western boundary of a proposed national park to protect endangered species such as gorillas, which as of 2003 were increasingly being hunted for bushmeat.
References
Populated places in Maniema
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