For several weeks now, Bukavu has been living through a disaster that seems to repeat itself endlessly. The capital of South Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was struck once again by a deadly fire on September 10, 2026, on Avenue Kasheke. The blaze, which started in a private home, spread to the Furaha and Ujamaa primary schools, triggering panic among the students. It was a stampede during the evacuation that turned the fire into a full-blown tragedy: the death toll, first put at 27, later rose to 29, nearly all of them children. Around fifty houses were also reduced to ashes, and several students suffering from smoke inhalation are still being treated in facilities across the region, while the bodies of the victims lie at the morgue of Bukavu General Hospital and the University Clinics.
This disaster was far from an isolated one. Only four days earlier, on September 6, another fire had ravaged the Kadutu market and the Nyamugo neighborhood. Over the past year alone, the city has recorded 57 deaths from fires, including thirteen children, and nearly 2,831 homes burned down. More than 18,000 residents have lost their homes as a result and are now surviving in churches, schools or with host families, with nowhere better to go. Local civil society groups point to a well-known but never truly fixed combination of factors: faulty electrical wiring, illegal power connections, the use of dangerous fuels, and widespread disregard for building and safety codes. Some fires are even suspected of being deliberately set, though this has yet to be confirmed.
The recurrence of these disasters is also tied to the city’s particular circumstances. Bukavu has been under the occupation of the AFC-M23 armed political movement since 2025, a situation that has severely damaged the local economy and people’s livelihoods. Provincial authorities in South Kivu have accused those in control of the city of prioritizing tax collection and population control over protecting residents, a charge reinforced by the glaring lack of resources: the city had to call in Rwandan firefighters, for lack of its own adequate equipment, to bring the flames under control.
Given the scale of the crisis, President Félix Tshisekedi personally intervened on September 11, demanding an « urgent, coordinated and lasting » response from the government. Yet Bukavu has, in theory, had contingency plans and warning systems in place for years that identify fires as a recurring risk, systems that have failed, in practice, to stop these tragedies from happening again and again. A recent special edition of Radio Okapi brought together two specialists, fire-prevention civil engineering consultant Jhon Kabwidi-bwidi and Stéphane Kabamba, head of training and operations for Kinshasa’s fire brigade, to try to pin down the root causes and possible ways forward. Even so, the recommendations that emerged remain fairly familiar ones: raising public awareness of basic safety practices, tightening control over electrical installations, and strengthening local emergency services, a call made often but rarely followed through on.