Africa06 September, 20262 min read
Fire During Wedding in Kinshasa Kills At Least 22 in DR Congo
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Fire at a Kinshasa wedding venue killed at least 22 people. Several others injured and hospitalized after the blaze.
Wedding fire in Kinshasa
A fire during a wedding celebration in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, left at least 22 people dead and several others injured, the regional mayor said Saturday. The blaze began Friday night and continued into early Saturday in a building in Lingwala, in northern Kinshasa, where narrow hallways became congested as attendees tried to escape. Norbert Mushinga, head of the commune of Lingwala, said the provisional death toll was 22 and warned it could rise further.
“‘It is a tragedy,’ Jacquemin Shabani, Congo's deputy prime minister and interior minister, said.”
Jacquemin Shabani, Congo’s deputy prime minister and interior minister, visited the site Saturday morning and called the incident a tragedy. The exact cause of the fire was unconfirmed, with local reporting noting that it remained unknown.
Officials, witnesses, and uncertainty
Norbert Mushinga told reporters at the scene that the fire erupted in a building housing a reception hall on the premises in Lingwala while a wedding ceremony was underway. Mushinga said, "The provisional death toll stands at 22 and could rise," and added that property inside the building was also destroyed by the blaze. The Killeen Daily Herald reported that the building’s narrow hallways were constricted by people trying to escape the fire and that several people—some alive and some dead—were laid by the roadside as attendees tried to help those still living.
Jacquemin Shabani described the event as a tragedy after visiting the site Saturday morning, while the cause of the fire remained unconfirmed in the accounts. United News of Bangladesh said authorities were investigating possible factors, including electrical faults and decorations at the venue.
What’s at risk next
Local reporting said the fire’s impact extended beyond deaths, with property inside the building destroyed and several injured people taken to hospitals across Kinshasa for treatment. Cadena 3 Argentina reported that the fire started on the second floor of the building and extended until the first hours of Saturday, while the cause exacta remained undetermined. Proceso Digital said the provisional balance the morning of 5 de septiembre de 2026 was 22 with numerous injured in emergency rooms of several hospitals, and it described the venue as a room called Panacée on the first floor of a commercial building on the bulevar Triomphal.
It also said the space had only one exit, "aparentemente, demasiado estrecha para permitir la evacuación de un gran número de personas a la vez," and that smoke prevented people from leaving. Modern.az attributed the high casualty count to the hall having only one narrow exit, reporting that people had difficulty getting out of the hall due to smoke and panic.