Kasongo

Kasongo, also known as Piani Kasongo, is a town and territory in Maniema Province in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The town lies east of the Lualaba River, northwest of where the Luama River joins it, at an altitude of 666 metres, and its population is put at about 63,000. It is served by Kasongo Airport and is joined to the provincial capital Kindu by a 240 kilometre section of National Road 31 that takes two days to travel because of its poor state. Kasongo was founded by Swahili-Arab traders and became the capital of the short-lived Sultanate of Utetera, ruled first by the slave and ivory trader Tippu Tip. It was a centre of the Congo Arab war in the early 1890s and was later hit hard by the Second Congo War. It is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kasongo.