Covid-19 is one more way for officials in Congo to earn a crust

ARRIVING IN Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is famously difficult. In the darkest days of Mobutu, the dictator from 1965 to 1997, new arrivals risked having all of their possessions looted by customs officials, who were otherwise not paid. That, thankfully, is over. Yet there is still a frisson of fear when you go through immigration. The officers of the DGM, the border police, will check your passport extremely carefully, thumbing every previous visa in it. Then you will have to show your yellow-fever certificate, and proof of vaccinations for polio and tetanus (God help those who forget, or whose certificate is torn or damaged). Finally, you have to clear customs, who mostly do not rifle through bags any more. But you never know.These days, however, there is one more stop. Before you can even enter the arrivals terminal, you have to go through a system of portacabins to take a mandatory coronavirus test, which costs $45. For most of the passengers who arrived when I did in early February, this was an affront too far. On exiting the bus from the plane, roughly half of the passengers from my flight saw the new building and decided simply to sprint past it. A few police officers tried to stop them, wrestling one young man to the ground. But the numbers were too many: most reached the arrivals hall and, seemingly, went through unmolested. I watched in awe, but decided to abide by the law and get my test. On entering the portacabin I immediately wished I had sprinted, too.