On February 26, 2026, six soldiers with the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as FARDC, arrested reporter Patient Chimusa Pardonne at the offices of the privately owned Référence Congo FM broadcaster in the eastern city of Uvira, in South Kivu province.
Chimusa was then detained at the local military intelligence office, according to two journalists who visited the journalist in custody and asked not to be named for security reasons.
The journalists told CPJ that during a hearing the same day, military authorities accused Chimusa of stealing vehicles from the National Refugee Commission (CNR), as well as collaboration with the M23/AFC rebel groups and espionage in Uvira.
The DRC’s mineral-rich, eastern region has been unstable since the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when ethnic conflict, combatants, and refugees spilled over into the DRC. It is one of the world’s worst, long-running humanitarian crises. The escalation in fighting and the rebels rapid gains in 2024 and 2025 marked a significant upheaval for local media, with journalists caught between actors that share a desire to prevent the press from freely publicizing their actions.
Chimusa was also accused of illegally broadcasting an interview with M23 spokesperson Willy Ngoma when Uvira was under rebel control in December 2025. Ngoma was killed in late February 2026.
Chimusa was provisionally released on March 2, 2026, after paying bail of US$500, and was asked to report to the local military intelligence office for four days.
Contacted by CPJ via messaging app at the time, Colonel Jean Pierre Elias Direns, the local head of military intelligence, declined to comment on the case.
In 2025, Chimusa was threatened and violently attacked over his reporting.