“I am deeply grateful to report that Lydia Mbotela, the manager of KQ in DRCongo, has just been released by the authorities in Kinshasa,” declared Korir Sing’oei, Kenya’s Principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on the X social network.
Sing’oei did not give any information about the fate of the second person.
The two employees, who worked at the airline’s office in Kinshasa, were arrested on April 19 by military intelligence, according to Kenya Airways.
Kenya Airways stated that “the reason for their arrest was the absence of customs documents relating to a valuable cargo that was to be transported on a KQ flight on April 12”.
But this cargo “was neither loaded nor accepted by KQ due to an incomplete documentation file”, Kenya Airways pointed out, regretting that “all efforts to explain to the military officials that KQ had not accepted the cargo due to incomplete documentation proved futile”.
The employees were kept incommunicado “until April 23, when embassy officials and KQ staff were allowed to visit them,” according to the company.
Kenya Airways had announced on April 29 that it was suspending its flights to Kinshasa, the capital of this nation bordering Angola, due to the “illegal” detention of its two employees in the DRCongo.
The Congolese authorities have not commented on these arrests.
Kenya Airways was founded in 1977 after the demise of East African Airways. It serves 45 destinations, 37 of which are in Africa.
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