The relationship between Barça and the Democratic Republic of Congo has a unique nature. Unlike the usual sponsorship contracts between a country or region and a football club, this one doesn't have among its objectives, according to the statement from the Barcelona club, promote tourism. The explanation is quite simple. "The tourism industry is nonexistent in Congo because the most interesting area is in the east, the Kivu region, and it has been at war for 30 years [it is now occupied by the M23, a Tutsi-majority rebel military group supported by neighboring Rwanda]. War crimes are committed and women are raped due to the professional way of working of both Barça and Congo. Gallego worked for the Blaugrana club for almost a decade.

British woman Alice Seeley Harris (1870-1970) entered the Congolese forest with her husband in 1898. As a missionary with the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, Alice carried the "word of God," but also a primitive Kodak camera that increasingly suits her. She witnessed and documented the crimes committed by the Force Publique (FP), which, on behalf of the Belgian King Leopold II, committed all kinds of atrocities in Congo.

Journalist Xavier Aldekoa (Barcelona, 1981) was hiding with 4,000 other people in a church in Buca, a small town in the Central African Republic. They were trying to protect themselves from the civil war. The forest around the church was full of corpses, and Aldekoa was trying to interview one of the hiding teenagers. The background noise from the church made it difficult to have an intelligible conversation, so they went outside. Less than 50 meters away, there were some people who needed some fresh air after days without seeing the blue sky. It was a relatively safe place compared to the danger beyond. But that safety quickly vanished.

The search for money by Joan Laporta's board has led Barça to close a sponsorship agreement with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most corrupt countries in the world (ranked 163 out of 180 by Transparency International). It also suffers from extreme lack of water and food in some areas; has serious infrastructure deficiencies and is experiencing a period of insecurity due to the territorial advance of the M23, a predominantly Tutsi rebel military group. Because of all this, activists, journalists and other members of Congolese civil society express their rejection of their government's agreement to allocate more than 40 million euros to sponsor Barça's training shirt for four seasons with the slogan "DR Congo – Heart of Africa (Congo, Heart of Africa). The alliance is official as of this Wednesday.

"I am no longer in Goma since my employment. I am ready to spend some time away from my family and loved ones," explains Steward Muhindo, a Congolese researcher, to ARA. The troops of the M23, the guerrilla group that has been operating in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2012, They occupied Goma at the end of JanuaryThis is a key moment in their latest campaign against the Congolese government, which has been underway since March 2022 and has allowed them to consolidate their dominance of territories rich in gold, coltan and other natural resources.

Some 2,500 inmates have escaped from a prison in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bukavu after the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group seized the town this weekend and set fire to the prison, local authorities and community leaders said. The militants also looted dozens of shops and many residents took advantage of the opportunity to steal whatever they could, in a situation of chaos and widespread panic.