Joseph Okito was born on 5 February 1910[1] in the village of Koyapongo, Lusambo Territory, Belgian Congo.
[3] Okito enjoyed an elevated social status due to his entrepreneurship and significant ownership of property.
Okito was preemptively arrested near Kikwit and was later transferred to the camp, along with Minister of Youth and Sports Maurice Mpolo.
[13] On 17 January 1961, discipline in the base faltered and all three men were flown to Élisabethville, capital of the secessionist State of Katanga.
Once there, they were brutally tortured at the hands of Moïse Tshombe and Godefroid Munongo, Lumumba's chief political rivals and the leaders of the secessionist state.
[15] The following morning, on orders of Katangan Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo who wanted to make the bodies disappear and thereby prevent a burial site from being created, Belgian Gendarmerie officer Gerard Soete and his team dug up and dismembered the corpses, and dissolved them in sulfuric acid while the bones were ground and scattered.