Republic of Congo
At least 21 people have been killed in a massacre
suspected to have been committed by militants from the Islamist ADF
group in conflict-wracked northeast DR Congo, a local official said
Saturday.
The ADF fighters first attacked a rival group of Congolese
militia members before killing inhabitants in the village of
Lisasa, with the “preliminary death toll” put at 21, according to
local administrator Donat Kibwana from the Beni territory of North
Kivu province.
The toll was confirmed by the head of the Buliki area, where
Lisasa is located.
A local NGO called Cepadho said in a statement that of the 21
killed, 15 were women.
All three sources said more people were kidnapped, a health
centre was ransacked, homes set on fire and a Catholic church
desecrated.
The ADF, which originated in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel
group, is one of more than 100 militias that plague the eastern
provinces of the vast Democratic Republic of Congo.
The group has killed nearly 600 civilians since the army
launched a crackdown on it last November, according to an
unofficial count.
The massacres are apparently reprisals for the army operation –
or are designed to warn locals against collaborating with the
authorities.
The ADF has never claimed responsibility for attacks. But since
April 2019, several of its assaults have been claimed by the
so-called Islamic State’s Central Africa Province, with the claims
of responsibility sometimes including factual mistakes.
The latest attack comes only days after the ADF killed 19 people
in the remote village of Baeti on Wednesday night. The village’s
church was torched, as were about 40 homes.
“During the month of October, the ADF has targeted Christian
churches. This is not insignificant,” Cepadho head Omar Kavota told
AFP.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Islamic State on Friday claimed responsibility for the Baeti
attack.
On October 21, hundreds of prisoners escaped from a jail in Beni
in an attack by gunmen. Police blamed the ADF, but the Islamic
State again took credit.
Aid Workers Kidnapped
Elsewhere in eastern DRC on Saturday, a humanitarian group and a
local official said four people including two aid workers had been
kidnapped for ransom.
The four were returning from the Mulongwe refugee camp when they
were snatched on the edge of Lake Tanganyika, Jean Lundimu, head of
the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA),
told AFP.
Lundimu said the kidnapped were two aid workers and a supplier —
all Congolese — as well as a Burundian.
They were ambushed on Friday in the Mutambala area of South Kivu
province’s Fizi region.
ADRA is the humanitarian agency of the Seventh-day Adventist
Church.
“Only the driver has been released. Negotiations are ongoing, we
are following the situation closely,” Lundimu said.
Kidnappings in the area are not uncommon. In mid-October a
driver for another international organisation was kidnapped before
being released after a ransom was paid, local official Moutard Wa
Mlendela said.
South Kivu, like other eastern provinces of the DRC, a vast
country the size of continental western Europe, remains in the grip
of armed groups, many of them claiming to defend ethnic
communities.
According to UN figures, 1,315 people were killed in the first
half of 2020, more than triple the toll of 416 over the same period
last year.
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/11/02/21-killed-in-new-dr-congo-massacre-by-adf-militia/