In October 1960, the walls were closing in for Patrice Lumumba. Months earlier, he had been celebrated as the Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister after decades of brutal colonial rule. But now, he had been overthrown in a coup and was being kept under house arrest by his political opponent.
With Lumumba’s life at risk, the Egyptian government under Gamal Abdel Nasser proposed a dangerous and unusual plan to have three of Lumumba’s young children smuggled out of the country and away to the safety of Cairo.
This week on Kerning Cultures; Patrice Lumumba’s children, and their escape to Cairo.
This story originally aired on Kerning Cultures, a podcast telling stories from across the Middle East and North Africa and the spaces in between.
