Kenya Airways (KQ) has protested the arrest and detention of two of its workers by the military at its Kinshasa airport office in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday, April 19, 2024.
According to KQ, in a statement released on Friday, the two employees are being detained by the Military Intelligence Unit alias Detection Militaire des Activities Anti Patrie (DEMIAP).
The airline says the DEMIAP officers also held them incommunicado and allowed Kenyan embassy and some KQ officials access to them for only a few minutes on April 23, 2024.
The national carrier says the reason given for the arrest was alleged missing custom documentation on valuable cargo slated to be transported on a KQ flight on April 12, 2024.
In its statement, KQ has maintained that the said suspect cargo had not been uplifted into the aircraft or accepted by the Nairobi-bound airplane owing to incomplete documentation.
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According to KQ, the cargo’s documentation was still being processed by the logistics handler and was not in its possession neither was it on the airside for transportation.
The airline, which faces financial headwinds, insists DRC security officers arrived when the cargo was still in the baggage section claiming KQ was ferrying it minus customs clearance.
After KQ failed to convince them that it had not yet accepted the suspect cargo, the officers nabbed and took the two workers to the military side of the air wing to record statements.
Kenya Airways Group Managing Director & CEO Allan Kilavuka has expressed concern over what he has termed as harassment by Kinshasa aimed at the Kenyan airline’s business.
Kilavuka accuses the DRC military intelligence of ignoring a court order obtained on in Kinshasa on April 25, 2024 ordering the release of its workers to pave way for due process.
The incident threatens to worsen Kenya-DRC diplomatic relations after the Nairobi Talks to restore peace in Eastern DRC stalled ahead of President Felix Tshisekedi’s reelection in 2023.
