A Brutal Loss
It looks like my beautiful friend was murdered.
Fearless reporting, a behind-the-curtains look at how journalism is made — and an unabashed point of view. Welcome to Chills.
Many of you met my extraordinarily talented artist/journalist/activist friend in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yves Kulondwa, a few years ago. I am extremely sad to tell you that Yves died a few weeks ago. He was in hiding in Rwanda because his work had pissed off the wrong people, and the circumstances around his death are highly suspicious. Yves was just 32.
If you’ve read my writing about him, you know what a beautiful and talented man he was. He shined. He rose. He worked. He loved. He achieved. He cared.
We met years ago when I decided not to go back to Congo to observe the trial of men accused of kidnapping and raping little girls in the village of Kavumu. It was too dangerous. Many, many things are too dangerous there, especially for the Congolese.
When I hired Yves at the last minute, I was frustrated that he was a cartoonist and photographer and not a reporter. I was desperate for a talented reporter to be my eyes and ears at the trial. I needn’t have worried. His talent for observation was outsized and he did a more than excellent job. Much better than a lot of reporters I’ve worked with in my time. And his drawings…his drawings were fantastic.
When I asked Yves how it felt drawing in the courtroom (which he also did besides taking notes and photos), he replied: “It was indeed a challenge! Following the trial, taking notes, photos, some videos and drawing at the same time. It was not easy, sure, but sometimes I like to test myself, and see how far I can go! At the same time, I must admit it was exhilarating! And then, if we can write that a witness had a quavering voice during his testimony, and illustrate it with a drawing, why not!!”
On top of everything, I gained a good friend.
Another thing Yves did was run an art school for kids like he’d once been — poor with no access to such a school — out of his own pocket. And when I asked you all for donations, you came through, raising $2,300 for the school. I spoke to him many times during that period and sent him every donation so he could see who’d given. He wanted to make a cartoon for each person who donated. Every donation, no matter how small, made him overjoyed. Yves was like that: unbelievably kind and filled with gratitude and joy. Here’s a video he made for all the people who gave money.
More recently, he worked with Greenpeace on a campaign to save the Congo Basin’s rainforest — a potential reason for his possible murder. The Congolese government has notoriously benefited for decades from logging, mining and other kinds of rape of the land.
While grieving, I’ve been working behind the scenes to determine what happened and who did this to Yves. He deserves justice.
I really have nothing left to say. My heart aches. I’ll leave you with something Yves said when he was grateful to all you readers for supporting him:
“Despite all the madness, you proved there’s still humanity in people.”
If you’d like to donate to the desperately needed funeral costs for Yves’ family, or to the continuation of his art school in eastern Congo, you can send money to me and I will send it all on in one go to avoid the constant Western Union transfer fees. Just note which you would like to help with. On Venmo: Lauren-Wolfe-10 and on PayPal: laurenwolfe at gmail.com.
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What a terrible, heartbreaking loss. Thank you for sharing this tribute to Yves with us.
I’m sorry for your loss.