SUMMARY
The Nkundo (also known as Bankundu) were a Bantu-speaking community in DR Congo (Zaire), belonging to the wider Mongo (Anamongo) group. They primarily resided in forested and riverine areas of Kasaï, southern Équateur and northern Bandundu provinces, including Monkoto territory in present-day Tshuapa. Around 400 000 people spoke Lonkundo, a dialect of the Mongo language. Nkundo society was organised in patrilineal clans and lineages headed by elders and local chiefs, who oversaw land, fishing grounds and village affairs. Villages were typically composed of extended families living in close-knit settlements along rivers and paths, and livelihoods centred on small-scale agriculture, fishing, hunting and local trade.
Nkundo political and social organisation formed part of the broader Mongo world, with customary chiefs, lineage heads and church leaders acting as intermediaries with territorial and provincial authorities. Under both colonial and post-colonial administrations, some Nkundo notables gained access to education and local government positions, while many community members remained in precarious rural conditions. In areas such as Bianga sector in Monkoto territory, Nkundo landowners and farmers employed or contracted Indigenous Iyeke workers on their fields, and long-standing inequalities in status and access to land and justice contributed to tense and often exploitative relations between Nkundo and neighbouring Indigenous communities.
Nkundo communal mobilisation into armed violence was most visible in early 2021 in the Bianga district of Monkoto territory, where they were a party to a large-scale attack on Iyeke villages. Tensions escalated after an Iyeke labourer was found murdered and mutilated in a Nkundo-owned field near Bondjindo on 29 December 2020, and Iyeke villagers looted and burned the landowner’s house in retaliation. The conflict escalated with Nkundo villagers using hunting rifles (“calibre 12”), machetes, knives and spears, and some wearing charcoal on their faces, red headbands and black-string bracelets as protective amulets in attacks. Nkundo launched attacks on villagesn burned houses, schools, churches and health centres.
The Nkundo was not connected to any named armed group. Their assaults were carried out by locally organised Nkundo village groups mobilised along communal and clan lines. No single commander stood out as a formal leader of all Nkundo forces, and participants often referred simply to “the Nkundo from Lingombe” or other villages as the attackers. However, the scale and coordination of the attacks, the use of firearms and the uniformity of markings such as red headbands and charcoal-painted faces indicated a level of planned communal mobilisation that went beyond spontaneous clashes. Despite the gravity of the events, Congolese authorities carried out no serious field investigation, and no Nkundo attackers were convicted for the killings.
