* The scene of the crime, via La Jornada.
Kande Mutsaku Kamilamba left a bank with his sister around noon last Thursday in the south of Mexico City and boarded a microbus headed north on Calzada de Tlalpan. At an intersection in the Coyoacan borough, two other passengers on the bus got up and without saying a word opened fire, killing the man and wounding his sister.
A naturalized Mexican professor originally from the Congo, Mutsaku had apparently owed someone $50,000 USD. Here's La Prensa's red-note back-cover with the news. "Another foreigner," the inside headline blared, presumably in reference to the scandalous killing of Christopher Augur, a Frenchman (and also an academic) shot in a hold-up attempt after exchanging euros at the airport.
The assailants escaped, and police are investigating. But there've been no updates all week. El Universal details Mutsaku's career in this piece. The professor earned his B.A. in Rome and his master's and doctoral degrees at UNAM in Mexico City. Mutsaku, a specialist in development and negritude in Africa and Latin America, had been a missionary in the Dominican Republic and spoke five languages. He was 43.
There are, of course, many Americans, French people, British people, Koreans, Africans, African Americans, Chinese, and even Chicanos living in Mexico City. It's a big, complex, cosmopolitan place. The Mutsaku and Augur killings are very rare, isolated incidents. That's why they make news.