Body found in Congo could be that of missing man with Kansas ties

Three bodies have been found in a Congo province two weeks after two United Nations experts and their colleagues disappeared there, the country’s government said Tuesday.

According to an Associated Press report, Congolese spokesman Lambert Mende told Top Congo FM that the bodies were found Monday but did not confirm they were of Michael Sharp of the United States and Zaida Catalan of Sweden.

Sharp, the son of John Sharp and Michele Miller Sharp of Hesston, was one of six people kidnapped March 12 in the Central African nation’s Kasai Central province, according to reports.

On Monday, John Sharp, a professor at Hesston College, wrote on his Facebook page that the bodies had been found in shallow graves.

“We have been informed that two Caucasian bodies have been found in the search area, one male and one female,” he wrote. “Since no other Caucasians have been reported missing in that reason, there is a high probability that these are the bodies of M.J. (Michael) and Zaida.”

John Sharp said dental records and DNA samples will be used to confirm the identities, though that process could take “some time.” When asked Tuesday morning if he wanted to comment further about the discovery of the bodies, Sharp declined.

“To our knowledge, there are no other foreigners who have disappeared in this region,” Mende said in the Associated Press report.

Michael Sharp, 34, was doing humanitarian work for the U.N. in the area.

After finishing college, he spent three years in Germany working to provide counseling for U.S. troops who had expressed an interest in becoming conscientious objectors, his father said.

Before working for the United Nations, Michael Sharp worked for three years for the Mennonite Central Committee in Central Africa. His father has said Michael Sharp made it his life’s work to find nonviolent ways to resolve conflict.

Michael Sharp grew up in Indiana, where his parents lived before they moved to south-central Kansas in 2005. He made his home in Albuquerque when not working abroad.

The disappearance of Sharp and the others represents the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch has said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for decades, but violence in the Kasai provinces in central Congo represents a new expansion of tensions.

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 9:30 AM with the headline "Body found in Congo could be that of missing man with Kansas ties."