Bonner Querschnitte 30/2023 Ausgabe 773 (eng)

(Bonn, 04.10.2023) The Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), Bishop Thomas Paul Schirrmacher, reported about his recent trip to neighbor countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, Gabon, and Congo Brazzaville.

He asked the Ambassador of DRC to Germany how he thinks relief organisations and churches around the world can be better involved in DRC. The Ambassador and the Secretary General of WEA agreed, that their is no explanation, why Congo gets so few attention in the world media and politics and the wrong impression is given, that some areas with a lot of eruptions of violence represent the whole country.

Schirrmacher used his special interest in tropical rain forests around the globe as example: the tropical rain forest in Latin America, especially in Brazil, is in the media daily, the tropical rain forest in Asia, e. g. in Papua-Neuguinea or Indonesia Papua often, the tropical rain forest in DRC is rarely mentioned and there are extremely few projects helping to protect it.

Ambassador Letamba holds a doctorate in law from the University of Liege in Belgium, is a diplomat since 2003, was DRC’s Ambassador to Gabon 2006–2015, and since 2018 is the Ambassador of the Democratic Republic of Congo to Germany (“Ambassadeur Extraordinaire et Plénipotentiaire de la RDC en Allemagne”).

Downloads and Links:

• Photo 1, photo 2 and photo 3: Thomas Schirrmacher and Jeannot Letamba © Embassy of DR Congo Berlin
• Linkedin profile of Jeannot Letamba: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannot-letamba-446b52192/