KINSHASA (DR Congo) - Papy Kiembe, the former player and coach of DR Congo's men and women't national team, has died after battling a long illness in the country's capital Kinshasa.

Coach Kiembe made his name for himself across the continent over the past decade.

One of Kiembe's dreams was to help DR Congo become a major player in the African basketball scene.

According to his friend and assistant coach Charly Buzangu, Coach Kiembe lived for basketball. "Sometime ten years ago we sat down to discuss the future of the game in our country. We agreed that we had to come up with a plan and make basketball attractive to everyone in our country,"  Buzangu recalled in a chat with FIBA.basketball.

When the opportunity to relaunch DR Congo's basketball to the continent's biggest showpiece - after a decade-long absence from the African Championship - came up , Kiembe and Buzangu took the leading role in coaching their national team during the qualifiers for the 2017 FIBA AfroBasket.

They not only qualified for the 2017 edition of the African Championship, but the DR Congo also caused the biggest upset in the tournament by beating then-defending champions Nigeria in the Group Phase.

DR Congo went to on qualify for the knock-out stages.

 
Kiembe had one more spell in charge of the DR Congo during the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup African Qualifiers.

"He was one of the greatest players this country has ever known," Buzangu noted. "He was a big brother, a friend to me. We spent a lot of time talking about basketball. I was devastated when I heard the news of his passing. He was away from basketball for the last five months to try and get cured of his illness."

"I fell blessed to have the chance of getting to know him. The two of us were crazy about basketball. We always talked about making a difference in basketball in our country and Africa."

Charly Buzangu

Kiembe last coached his country at the 2019 FIBA Women's AfroBasket, an event that made him miss out DR Congo basketball's biggest achievement in recent times. 

Kiemebe and Buzangu prepared the team that would eventually win the 2019 FIBA AfroCan in Bamako, Mali, but Kiembe chose to take charge the women's team "because he felt that women's basketball in our country needed him."

 In 1980 and 90s, Kiembe played BC Terror before taking charge of local clubs BC Mazembe and Vita.

His last public appearance was during the 2021 DR Congo Cup final with Vita Club lost to CNSS at the Franco Congolese alliance site in Lemba (Center Kinshasa). 

FIBA