IS group-linked militants slaughter 60 people in eastern DR Congo

Militants linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group have killed around 60 people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in an overnight attack against residents, an official has said.

The Allied Democratic Force (ADF) committed the atrocity at a burial in Ntoyo in North Kivu province, according to the local administrator Colonel Alain Kiwewa.

“The ADF attack caused around 60 deaths, but the final toll will be given later this evening because the territory has just deployed services to the area to count the number of beheaded people,” Kiwewa said.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a survivor described what she saw during the attack.

“There were about 10 of them. I saw machetes. They told people to gather in one place and started cutting them. I listened to people screaming and I fainted,” the witness said.

Who are the ADF?

The ADF, an armed group started by Ugandan rebels in the 1990s, moved to the DRC in 2002 and pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2019.

The group operates in the border region between Uganda and eastern DRC, where it and other militias fight over the Congolese region’s abundant mineral resources.

After a relative lull in activities earlier this year, the ADF killed more than 30 people worshipping in a Catholic church in Komanda, a city in Ituri province.

This attack in July was followed by further atrocities the following month, with the United Nations peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO) in the DRC saying that the group slaughtered at least 52 civilians between 1 and 16 August in North Kivu’s Beni and Lubero territories.

The ADF killings were accompanied by “kidnappings, looting, the burning of houses, vehicles, and motorcycles, as well as the destruction of property belonging to populations already facing a precarious humanitarian situation”, MONUSCO said.

War-torn eastern DRC has been beset by years of violence, which increased earlier this year when the M23 group seized the strategic city of Goma.

Thousands have been killed in the region this year alone, while tens of thousands of others have been forced to flee their homes.

A new UN report published on Friday found that both the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and the Congolese army were responsible for crimes including the killing of civilians, gang rape and torture.

“DRC and Rwanda bear responsibility for their support to armed groups with known track records of serious abuses, and for failing to meet their obligations to take all measures to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to protect civilians from serious harm,” the report said.

Although a US-brokered peace deal was signed by the two countries in June, massacres in eastern DRC continue to be reported.