Twenty-two dead after fire in a first-floor wedding hall on Boulevard Triomphal

A fire in a first-floor wedding hall in Lingwala, Kinshasa, killed at least 22 people on the night of 4 to 5 September. Norbert Mushiga Nzindula, the commune's mayor, gave that figure on Saturday morning and said it could rise. The wounded were taken to Hospital Vijana, Hospital Cinquantenaire, Camp Kokolo hospital and the former Maman Yemo hospital.

The hall, Salle Panacée, sits in a commercial building on Boulevard Triomphal, near the National Museum. Guests were seated when the groom entered. The bride had not yet arrived. Video recorded a fire starting in front of the space reserved for the couple. The mayor said there was a single exit, too narrow for a crowd, and that smoke made the stairs worse. Some of the dead and some of the living were laid at the roadside while other guests tried to help.

Interior minister Jacquemin Shabani, who is also a deputy prime minister, visited the site on Saturday morning. Vice-governor Eddy Iyeli Molangi went with provincial officials. The provincial government later issued a statement that spoke of about ten dead. That figure does not match the mayor's 22. Radio Okapi noted the gap. Scientific police were still on the scene. The cause had not been established. Municipal officials said the bride and groom survived and that the bride was in shock.

Kinshasa's dry season produces fires in crowded buildings that were put up without a working fire service on call. Local outlets have already counted several this year. Shabani called the wedding fire a tragedy. The sentence that will matter later is the one about the door. A first-floor hall with one narrow exit is a known design. Enforcement of hall licences is the part that failed in public.

The provincial statement promised an inquiry. Until that report appears, the usable facts are the mayor's death toll, the four hospitals, the name of the hall, the boulevard, and the film of the first flames in front of the couple's table. Relatives will spend Sunday moving between those hospitals and the morgue. The licence file on Salle Panacée, if it exists in order, will show whether the hall was ever signed off for a crowd of that size.

Kinshasa has 24 communes. Lingwala is one of the central ones. A fire there is not a distant rural accident. It happened on a main boulevard, in a building that people walk past every day. That is why the interior minister came in person. It is also why the difference between ten dead and 22 dead cannot sit unresolved for long. The next official number should come from the hospitals and the morgue, not from two competing press notes.