Bangui — "Father Crépin was deeply committed to dialogue. It is possible that he was killed to block the peace process currently underway in Zémio," Bishop Aurelio Gazzera of Bangassou told Fides News Agency. Father Crépin Martial Monga-Hadassi, who served in the Diocese of Bangassou, was shot dead in Zémio on June 29 (see Fides, 30/6/2026). His funeral was celebrated today, July 1, at Saint Peter Claver Cathedral in Bangassou.

According to the limited information available so far, Father Crépin was the victim of a targeted ambush while travelling along a road not far from his parish. He was hit by at least one gunshot and died instantly. Another bullet wounded a person who was accompanying him.

As chairman of Zémio's Peace Committee, Fr. Crépin had been actively engaged in promoting reconciliation among local communities in an area where several armed groups operate alongside soldiers of the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) and mercenaries from the Russian private military company Wagner. Just a few days before his death, the priest had visited the village of Tabane, about 20 kilometres from Zémio, urging families not to flee into the bush whenever Russian mercenary patrols appeared, in an effort to restore calm and confidence among the population. That commitment may have cost him his life.

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Fr. Crépin Martial Monga-Hadassi was born in Bangassou on September 5, 1990. From 2004 to 2008 he attended Saint Louis Minor Seminary in Bangassou and then studied at Miskine High School in Bangui between 2008 and 2011. From 2011 to 2012 he undertook preparatory studies with the Society of African Missions (SMA) in Bangui-Bimbo.

He studied philosophy at the Saint Augustine University of Kinshasa (USAKIN) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2012 to 2014, before continuing his formation at Saint Mark Major Seminary in Bangui-Bimbo, where he completed his theological studies between 2016 and 2020. From September 2020 to May 2021 he carried out his diaconal internship at Mary Mother of God Parish in Lanome.

He was ordained a deacon on May 30, 2021, in Saint Peter Claver Cathedral in Bangassou by Bishop Juan José Aguirre, then Bishop of Bangassou. The same bishop ordained him to the priesthood on December 8, 2021, at the Marian Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Pande. Since 2024, Fr. Crépin had been serving as assistant parish priest in Zémio.