The remains of the late Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, father of the current President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Félix Tshisekedi, have been transferred from Brussels to Kinshasa this 30 May 2019 by two Airbus Corporate jets: a GlobalJet A318 Elite registered LX-LTI and a White Privatair A319 registered CS-TFU. These business aircraft were chartered by the Tshisekedi family to carry the corpse and several family members and friends.
Etienne Tshisekedi passed away in Brussels on 1 February 2017, but his family could not transfer the corpse to his homeland due to the opposition of then President Joseph Kabila, fearing an insurrection.
A flight by Airbus A330 was initially scheduled to take off yesterday after a ceremony in the presence of Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders, but it was cancelled at the last moment for “logistic reasons”, according to the Congolese authorities (in fact, the non-payment of an invoice). Brussels Airlines was contacted and replied it could take care of the transport of Tshidekedi’s remains, but it had only 37 seats available on its regular flight to Kinshasa, hence the Congolese delegation declined the offer.
The A318 with the remains of Mr Tshisekedi took off from Brussels at 12:25 and the A319 at 15:45 (flight WI9801).
The funeral in Kinshasa will take place on 31 May and 1 June.
This post was published on 30 May 2019 15:57
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