Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta

Childhood

Nengapeta was born in Wamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo on 29 December 1939 to Amisi Batsuru Batobobo and Isude Julienne as the fourth of six daughters; she belonged to the Wabudu tribe. The fifth and sixth were twins.^[5] Her father – a former soldier – dismissed his wife in order to take another wife so that he might have a son, but she turned out to be sterile. As a child she forgave her father for leaving her mother.^[4] Nengapeta – and her birth mother – were both baptized together in 1945 and she took the name "Alphonsine". It seems she was baptized twice because her original certificate of baptism was lost. One sister was Léontine Anuarite.

Nengapeta once saw a goat get butchered and she refused to eat the meat because she said its blood was much like hers. Each time she finished school she went to help her grandmother with tasks.^[4] Once she began her schooling her registration had an error with her sister's name instead of the name she had been given at baptism. Her sister took her to register for her schooling but the Belgian religious sister who met them erred and signed her up with her baptismal name and sister's name.^[4] Therefore her name – just Nengapeta – is now viewed as Anuarite Nengapeta.^[5]

Religious

Nengapeta decided to pursue the religious life, for she admired the sisters and respected Sister Ndakala Marie-Anne. Her mother was against her vocation so she decided to do something about it after learning a truck arrived at the local mission to bring postulants to a convent. She did not tell her mother and instead boarded the truck unseen and went off to the convent.^[4] Her mother searched for a week but learned of what happened to her daughter from a village child; her mother was frustrated but did not demand her daughter return, knowing it was to be. The girl entered the religious life in 1959, assuming the name of "Marie-Clémentine" at her profession on 5 August. Her parents were at her profession celebration and gave two goats to the sisters to express their happiness, though her mother later wanted her to return home to give them financial support. There was one occasion when Marie-Clémentine attacked a hoodlum in anger when he was making overtures to one of the nuns.^[4][5]

Capture and death

In 1964 the Simba rebellion broke out across the nation and the Simba rebels opposed Westerners but also the indigenous monks and sisters because of their suspicion that these religious were cooperating with foreigners. The rebels stormed her convent on 29 November 1964 and loaded all 46 of them into a truck telling them, it was to make sure they knew their math and school subjects. They were told the truck would go to Wamba, though it set off instead for Isiro to Colonel Yuma Déo's compound.^[4] Colonel Ngalo, with the aid of the soldier Sigbande, tried to get her to be his wife and threatened her with death when she kept refusing. Ngalo turned to fellow Colonel Olombe (b. 1938) for his help in seducing her. For dinner on 30 November she had rice and sardines with a fellow religious and warned her sisters not to drink the beer. Olombe then sent the sisters off to bed and asked her to remain behind for he wanted her for himself. He insulted her when she refused his offers and so forced her and Sister Bokuma Jean-Baptiste into a car. The two tried to escape as he went back to the compound for the keys but he caught and began beating them. Bokuma fainted after he broke her arm in three places, while he called some rebels to stab Nengapeta before pulling a revolver and shooting her in the chest.^[5]

Olombe ordered some sisters to remove her from his sight but she was still breathing for several minutes before she died around 1:00 am on 1 December 1964. Between the blows she had the strength to tell her attacker: "I forgive you, for you know not what you are doing". Her remains were buried in a common grave but were exhumed eight months later and reburied.^[4] Her remains were later exhumed in December 1978 and it was found she had an image of the Mother of God in her right hand. Her remains – after exhumation – were then moved to the Isiro Cathedral.^[5] Olombe was sentenced to death in 1965 but escaped from prison. He returned to prison and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1966, though he received a pardon in 1971.^[6]

The Anuarite Woman of Courage Prize

The Anuarite Woman of Courage in the D.R.C. Prize was established in 2009, named after the late sister to honor her courage and strength. The prize is meant to recognize and honor the vital contribution of women to the development of democratic values in the nation. On an annual basis a cash prize is awarded to a Congolese woman who helped to make her area a better place through hard work and dedication.^[4]

During the Simba rebellion, armed combatants seized Anuarite and other sisters and forced them toward Isiro. On 1 December 1964 a commander assaulted and threatened her after she rejected his sexual demands; she was then beaten and killed while seeking to protect both her consecration and another sister. The Church recognizes this death as martyrdom. It should be narrated without voyeuristic detail and without suggesting that a victim who cannot resist violence loses dignity, holiness, or responsibility for a crime committed entirely by the aggressor. This Christian witness points toward Christ and the universal call to holiness. Remembering it truthfully means neither making suffering desirable nor treating every choice, opinion, or later retelling as if the Catholic Church had canonized it.

Her companions testified that Anuarite encouraged prayer during captivity and spoke words of forgiveness as she died. Those testimonies place her response within union with Christ, not within approval of civil war, abduction, or sexual violence. Her witness also belongs to the history of Congolese women religious and lay Catholics who sustained schools, health care, and parish life amid violence; beatification does not erase their agency or settle every disputed detail of the rebellion. A sound account distinguishes documented events, contemporary testimony, and the Church's later judgment. That discipline protects both historical truth and authentic devotion, especially where illness, violence, politics, colonial power, or disputed memories are involved.