What The Whole-And-Entire F**k Is Going On Here?

spiegel  |  The capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo is being overrun by a dangerous new drug called bombé, made from deposits the catalytic converters of automobiles. In a country facing many problems, it helps people forget. 

The videos appeared suddenly, circulating via WhatsApp and on social networks. And what they depicted quickly got a name: The zombies of Kinshasa. The images showed people completely motionless, or moving only slowly – and investigators quickly figured out what it was: a new drug by the name of bombé.

"It is an epidemic,” a leading investigative official told DER SPIEGEL. And the crisis has also captured the attention of the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. President Felix Thisekedi held a special cabinet meeting to discuss the new drug earlier this year. He is eager to demonstrate that he is doing all he can.

But the rapid spread of bombé is also symptomatic of a sick country, and of a megacity that has become downright inhospitable for many inhabitants. Statistics regularly show Kinshasa to be one of the least habitable cities in the world, just ahead of Damascus and Baghdad.

In one of the city’s most disreputable neighborhoods, Selembao, four young men are sitting in a concealed courtyard. A pane of glass is lying in front of them with brown powder on it. Next to the powder, they crumble white tablets to dust and then mix both substances. "The tablets need to be mixed in; they stimulate the appetite. If we didn’t include them, we wouldn’t eat anything for two days,” the youths explain.

The youths then form the powder into three short, thin lines with a razor blade, similar to how lines of cocaine are prepared. Most of it is snorted, with the glass pane being passed around the circle. The rest is crumbled into cigarettes and smoked. After taking it, the youths first become euphoric, but then they begin to move more and more slowly.

The four young men know what the powder supposedly contains: deposits and substances from catalytic converters, all of which has been scraped out of old cars and then processed into a drug. "We aren’t worried about it,” they say. Ultimately, they claim, they have nothing to lose. "Bombé helps us forget everything. In the West, they have bank accounts, I have nothing. With bombé everything is easier.” One of the users says it’s like a veil lying over you. And this for only a dollar per trip.

You don’t get much else for that amount in Kinshasa. A meal in a mid-range restaurant can easily cost 30 US dollars, while rents in the better neighborhoods approach those in Munich and Frankfurt. Kinshasa is among the most expensive cities in the world, at least for foreign workers. There are many super-rich residents, who drive through the wide streets of the business district in giant SUVs.

At the same time, though, the economy is in shambles, the country’s raw materials wealth reaches only a small elite and there is barely a middle class. A large part of the estimated 15 million inhabitants of this metropolis has no fixed job and no regular income, a number that has only grown throughout the coronavirus pandemic.