Ordinance no.70/295 of 9 November 1970 fixed the organization of the Coast, River, and Lake Guard, after it had been created by ordonnance-loi 70/060 of the same day. A coast guard was headquartered at Banana, the River Guard at Kinshasa and the Lake Guard at Kalemie. Some five years later, however, the organization became the Force Navale Zairoise. Before the downfall of
Mobutu Sese Seko,
Zaire operated a small navy on the Congo river with a few facilities on the Atlantic coast. It consisted of 1,300 personnel, including 600 marines. One of its installations was at the village of
N'dangi near the presidential residence in
Gbadolite. The port at N'dangi was the base for several patrol boats, helicopters and the presidential yacht.
Boma and
Matadi were the ports used for the Atlantic coast flotilla. During the 1970s Zaire acquired several patrol boats and
torpedo boats from the U.S.,
China, and
North Korea,
France, but they received a low level of maintenance and many of them were removed from service by the 1990s. The 2002 edition of ''
Jane's Sentinel'' described the Navy as being "in a state of near total disarray" and stated that it did not conduct any training or have operating procedures. The Congolese navy shares the same discipline problems as the other services. It was initially placed under command of the MLC when the transition began: the current situation is uncertain. The Congolese navy took part in an exercise overseen by
United States Army troops in 2010 in
Lake Tanganyika, to verify that it met
African Union standards. During the
Dongo conflict in the northwestern DRC, a number of navy personnel fled across the
Congo River to the nearby
Republic of the Congo as refugees, along with many civilians. In September 2017 the Congolese navy supported army operations against a
Mai-Mai militia and sunk a rebel boat in Lake Tanganyika. On 5 July 2018, the Congolese navy fought a skirmish against the
Ugandan navy in
Lake Edward after Ugandan vessels attacked Congolese fishing boats. Several people were killed in the clashes. The naval forces in the area on the Congolese side are commanded by Major Jean Tsongo. The Congolese navy in the area is also tasked with keeping rebels from Uganda from entering the DRC. ==Organization==