Government soldiers reportedly responsible for killing

An article on the website of Boston University where Fr. Machozi did his studies
03.23.2016 By Art Jahnke

Rev. Vincent Machozi (STH’15), an Assumptionist priest, was gunned down Sunday night in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by a dozen armed men, reportedly members of the country’s army. Photo courtesy of Augustinians of the Assumption North American Province

Rev. Vincent Machozi (STH’15), a Catholic priest of the religious order Augustinians of the Assumption (Assumptionists), who for several years documented human rights abuses in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was murdered Sunday night by armed gunmen, shortly after he posted an online article denouncing the involvement of the Congolese and Rwandan presidents in the massacres of innocent civilians.

A native of eastern Congo and a School of Theology student from 2006 to 2012, Machozi worked closely with the BU Pardee School of Global Studies African Studies Center on outreach efforts in the war-torn country.

2016-03-21 - R.D. Congo

La Croix, Paris

Founder of an informational website documenting the ongoing violence on North Kivu Province, Fr. Vincent Machozi was murdered in the early hours of Monday, March 21, shortly after he had posted an article denouncing the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda in recent massacres affecting the region.

Fr. Vincent Machozi defended the Yira ethnic group (also known as Nande), who have been victims of the massive and illegal exploitation of coltan in the eastern Congo Could it have been the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that murdered Assumptionist priest Vincent Machozi in the early hours this morning, March 21, while he was sleeping at his mother's home some 10 miles from the city of Butembo?

« Soldiers arrived in a vehicle a little after midnight, broke down the door, and shot him on site », according to Very Rev. Emmanuel Kahindo, vicar general of the Assumptionist congregation stationed in Rome, himself a Congolese and from the same tribe as Fr. Machozi.

Fr. Vincent Machozi (1965-2016)

Fr. Vincent Machozi was murdered this morning (March 21^st) in the Congo.

More information:

Un assomptionniste congolais assassiné en RD-Congo
La Croix, le 21/03/2016

RDC: Assassinat du Père assomptionniste Vincent MACHOZI le GADHOP exige une information judiciaire contre les autorités sécuritaires de la zone du crime
GADHOP, Mars 21, 2016

Congolese Assumptionist priest murdered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
2016-03-21 - R.D. Congo
La Croix, Paris

Founder of an informational website documenting the ongoing violence on North Kivu Province, Fr. Vincent Machozi was murdered in the early hours of Monday, March 21, shortly after he had posted an article denouncing the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda in recent massacres affecting the region.

Fr. Vincent Machozi defended the Yira ethnic group (also known as Nande), who have been victims of the massive and illegal exploitation of coltan in the eastern Congo Could it have been the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that murdered Assumptionist priest Vincent Machozi in the early hours this morning, March 21, while he was sleeping at his mother's home some 10 miles from the city of Butembo?

« Soldiers arrived in a vehicle a little after midnight, broke down the door, and shot him on site », according to Very Rev. Emmanuel Kahindo, vicar general of the Assumptionist congregation stationed in Rome, himself a Congolese and from the same tribe as Fr. Machozi.

« Over the past two years he has been threatened and three times barely escaped being killed », added Fr. Kahindo who recalled  a conversation they had last October in which he said : « Pray for me because I will be murdered… »

Fr. Jean Claude de Rosny, a French Assumptionist, has finally hung up his walking boots after 55 years of serving the Church and the Assumption faithfully and energetically in his adopted homeland of Madagascar. Recently ordained, at age 28, he disembarked at the port of Tuléar (Toliara), seven years after the Assumptionists arrived on the “big island” to assume responsibility for the newly created diocese and only a few months after the country’s independence was declared on June 26, 1960.

Having spent a few months immersed in learning the local language, Malagasy, he was assigned as an assistant at the cathedral parish. Not long thereafter, he took up numerous posts in the many outstations of the diocese only to be named vicar general of the diocese and the regional superior of the Assumptionists. But his love was in the missions of the bush country where he returned after his administrative service. However, it wasn’t long before the Congregation and the Church asked him to return to Toliara to become director of the school for catechists and pastor of the French-speaking parish in the city.