Aside from the threat of disease, this colonial city on banks of the Congo has been blighted by generations of underinvestment and bad government

Mbandaka, once prosperous and charming, with electricity and running water 24 hours a day, hasn’t moved on since the 1970s. Quite the opposite – this city, situated at the confluence of the Congo and Ruki rivers, has declined. Rainwater gnaws at the tarmac of its roads due to lack of drainage; houses collapse into the sodden ground of its estates; its socioeconomic life exudes poverty and misery, all the more glaring beside the affluent minority. Deadly malnutrition is creeping into many families. In late May, news that Ebola had reached Mbandaka added an edge of fear to this dismal portrait. The latest outbreak had already killed nearly 30 across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and reaching a city of 1.2 million threatened a serious escalation.



Panic management

The faithful pack bars and churches alike, talking of Ebola and of the provincial government that has done nothing since arriving in power five months ago. Others bemoan the terrible state of the Mbandaka-Bikoro road, which is currently obstructing efforts to reach sites over which the disease has cast a fatal shadow. This Ebola outbreak was born around Bikoro, a market town 130km to the south; the handful of cases in the city are people who have travelled from this territory, which explains why panic is relatively restrained here.

On the other hand, the city has seen a massive influx of manpower to combat the disease – Africans, Europeans, Congolese doctors, lab assistants, nurses, researchers, awareness campaigners – and money is pouring in. The hotel signs all read: “No vacancies!” Experts and the authorities are working relentlessly to devise containment and vaccination strategies from the local government headquarters and the Iyonda reception centre, 15km from the city centre. Panic is receding, though the fightback against the spread of the outbreak continues on the ground.

Mbandaka in numbers

460 sq km – Surface area of the city

4km – Distance between town hall and the equator

93.6% – Percentage of the population living on less than $1 a day

2% – Percentage with access to drinkable water

370 – Hectare size of the Eala botanical gardens, founded in 1900

History in 100 words

Mbandaka, founded by Henry Morton Stanley in 1883 as Équateurville, was born thanks to migration imposed by the Congo’s Belgian colonists, which displaced native people across the country. The majority of the city’s population are ethnically Mongo, widely called “Ngele ea ntando”, or “from downstream”. In fact they largely came from upstream, travelling down the Tshuapa, Busira and Ruki rivers to end up in Mbandaka, then called Coquilhatville after the Belgian governor Camille-Aimé Coquilhat. They set themselves up largely in the Bokala neighbourhood against the river on the city’s east side. A separate stream of migrants – from the Eleku, Mpama, Nunu and other tribes – came down the river from Mampoko to occupy Bongondjo, Bolenge and other districts. The city, though it never became the Congolese capital it was once earmarked as, was an administrative centre from the late 19th century onwards.

Best building

Built to proclaim the DRC’s independence in June 1960, and hosting Mbandaka’s first black governor, Laurent Eketebi, the city’s public administration building is without equal across the country (apart from the one in Kananga): two wings, four floors, set in a picturesque garden of acacia and cypress.

Mbandaka in sound and vision



Take a slideshow tour of interiors from Mbandaka’s colonial houses, with audio of those occupying them.

Biggest urban risk

There’s a tendency to blame Mbandaka’s decline on the political authorities, especially former president Mobutu Sese Soko and his allies. But the simple truth is that everyone around him busy enriching themselves invested in other provinces without looking out for Mbandaka. Meanwhile, locals put their time into minor trading activities, whereas people in Kivu and Bandundu made big real-estate investments. Lack of electricity is the other reason for Mbandaka’s stunted development. Because of the north-south conflicts in DRC, Mobutu didn’t have the option of hooking the city to the grid until the arrival of electricity in Bandundu in 1993. Mbandaka’s people are still waiting.

Grand designs

Colonial urban planning was excellent: first-rate building lots with well-thought-out layouts that avoided marshy ground. But this legacy hasn’t been respected since: for the last 20 years, we’ve seen the parcelling out of state land. Private villas are sprouting like mushrooms, without planning controls, though many are undeniably beautiful buildings. More than a thousand plots are affected, on which people are even starting to squabble over access roads. The local council has just established an inquiry into the free-for-all, and evictions and demolitions may follow.

What’s next for the city?

The future isn’t necessarily dark. Mbandaka might rise again if the locals can join forces with investors who know how to take risks and set up processing units such as sawmills and cocoa-bean-roasting, fish-salting and livestock-feed facilities, as well as developing poultry farms instead of waiting for eggs to arrive from Kinshasa. The Eala botanical gardens are a wonder with great tourist potential, and let’s not forget the little islands and fishing camps that decorate the many branches of the Congo river. But the city’s first priority is warehouses and floating storage for holding and dispatching goods. This might encourage traders to stop in Mbandaka and stock up there rather thanheading elsewhere.

Close zoom

On the ground in Mbandaka in late May, the Economist painted an optimistic picture of a country getting to grips with Ebola. Take a trip from the city along the Congo in a pirogue, a boat carved from the Tola tree, in this photo essay.

Peter Gbiako is director of Radio Mwana in Mbandaka.



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