Fredrick Mwenengabo poses for a portrait with David Coon, leader of the Green Party of New Brunswick, upon his return to Fredericton.Chris Donovan/The Globe and Mail
Fredrick Wangabo Mwenengabo slowly limped toward his sons at Fredericton International Airport on Saturday evening, his left leg buckling at times – a remnant of the torture he endured in captivity for five-and-a-half months in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
His pink-and-blue-checked shirt ballooned over his trousers, and his eyes, glazed with tears sliding down one cheek, were bloodshot and jaundiced. His son, Lundi Karhibahaza, handed him a wooden cane. And then he was whisked into a room to speak to a plain-clothed RCMP officer.
In December, Mr. Mwenengabo, a Canadian known as “Freddy,” was kidnapped, along with his brother and a friend, while he was visiting family in Congo, where he was born. A well-known advocate for peace and human rights in the country, he was taken by three masked men in a Jeep outside the eastern city of Goma into what he thinks is the middle of Virunga National Park, a site where Rwandan-backed M23 insurgents have been clashing with Congo’s national army.
His brother and the friend were quickly released, but Mr. Mwenengabo was not. Since then, his sons, Mr. Karhibahaza and Simon Chinamula, who also live in New Brunswick, with the help of the leader of the Green Party of New Brunswick, David Coon, have pleaded for help from the Canadian government. They rallied outside the legislature, shared his story in the media, including The Globe and Mail, and most recently, showed up at the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly in Ottawa.
Finally, about one week ago, Mr. Mwenengabo was released into the hands of the Agence Nationale de Renseignements, a Congolese government intelligence agency in Goma. A day or two later, Canadian diplomats from the capital city of Kinshasa provided him with his passport and some of his belongings.
Global Affairs Canada did not respond to The Globe with a new statement, instead reiterating a response from April saying it is aware that a Canadian citizen was kidnapped in the Congo and that it cannot provide more information because of safety and privacy.
Fredrick Wangabo Mwenengabo (right) hugs his friend Tim Fox upon his arrival at Fredericton Airport Saturday evening. Mr. Mwenengabo, known to friends as Freddy, was kidnapped in December and held for five and half months in the Democratic Republic of Congo before being released this week.Lindsay Jones/The Globe and Mail
Upon Mr. Mwenengabo’s weekend arrival in New Brunswick’s capital, a small contingent of friends and supporters, including Mr. Coon and his wife, Janice, were there alongside his sons to welcome him home. It was a sombre and emotional reunion – his first real day of being free, he said.
He greeted each of his friends, tears falling from his expressionless eyes, as he softly repeated the words, “Thank you.” At times, he recoiled in pain at the lightest of hugs: “It’s good,” he assured his friends.
As an advocate, Mr. Mwenengabo has previously spoken in a video by Halifax’s Canadian Museum of Immigration about a colleague who was killed in Congo, and said he had been harassed and tortured when he lived there. In 2005, he was arrested and accused of trying to overthrow the government. He then fled to Uganda, where he worked for Amnesty International, before immigrating to New Brunswick.
At the airport Saturday, he shuffled toward the parking lot, stopping to speak of how he believes his kidnapping was a state-organized crime. He said the men who held him captive were wearing military uniforms, and changed shift like clockwork, moving him blindfolded from house to house.
There, he said he was beaten, his toenails hit with hammers. He witnessed executions at the hands of his captors. Corpses in plastic bags dropped into the river. He spoke of being inside one of these bags himself, before a soldier realized he was alive and removed him.
“For the first time in my life, I lost hope,” Mr. Mwenengabo said in an interview. “I lived in prayers.”
Finally safe among friends and family, he wanted to celebrate and have a beer in the late day sun at Dolan’s Pub, the Irish local where he used to meet these same friends every Friday night.
At a large patio table in downtown Fredericton, eating his first meal since his release – a bowl of smoked haddock chowder and a piece of bread – it hit him once or twice that he was alive. He was home. He had been so close to going the other way, he told The Globe.
That night, Mr. Mwenengabo retired to a hotel with his sons, sleeping just a few hours. His lower back, his shoulder and his leg hurt. He says he’s in too much discomfort to stay in one position for too long.
For now, he will live in a granny suite at Mr. Coon’s bungalow on a quiet tree-lined street in his adopted province. During the months he was held captive, his apartment was cleared out and leased to someone else.
Mr. Mwenengabo hopes to return to his old job working at the Centre communautaire Sainte-Anne, helping francophone newcomers in Fredericton. In Mr. Coon’s living room on Sunday morning, he repeated the same words he said minutes after he touched down: He will never stop speaking out for peace and human rights.
“I don’t think what they’ve done will deter me,” he said.
“To my death, I will speak and I will do.”