January 13, 2026
Justice Elusive for UN Experts Murdered in DR Congo
In March 2017, grainy video footage revealed that armed men walked Zaida Catalán, a 36-year-old Swede, and Michael Sharp, a 34-year-old American, through a savanna, sat them down and shot them. The brutal murders of the two United Nations investigators—and the disappearance of their Congolese interpreter and the three motorbike drivers who accompanied them—sent shockwaves across the Democratic Republic of Congo and the broader international community, especially among researchers and human rights defenders working in central Africa.