The death toll has risen to at least 34 people in a savage attack by Islamic State-backed rebels on a Catholic church in the eastern Congo on Sunday, according to a local leader.
Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, in the Ituri province, told The Associated Press (AP) that the attackers, armed with guns and machetes, stormed the church in Komanda town at around 1 a.m.
The rampage also extended to several houses and shops that were torched.
“The bodies of the victims are still at the scene of the tragedy, and volunteers are preparing how to bury them in a mass grave that we are preparing in a compound of the Catholic church,” Duranthabo told AP.
Video footage from the scene posted on Aljazeera shows burning structures and bodies on the floor of the church.
Reportedly at least five other people were murdered in an earlier attack on the nearby village of Machongani.
The Allied Democratic Force (ADF) is believed to be the perpetrators of both attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The ADF is a rebel group that historically has operated along the border between Uganda and Congo. It was formed in Uganda in the late 1990s following alleged discontent with President Yoweri Museveni.
According to CNN:
In 2002, following military assaults by Ugandan forces, the group moved its activities to neighboring DRC and has since been responsible for the killings of thousands of civilians. In 2019, it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The ADF’s leadership conceives of an Islamist government in the East African country.
As Breitbart News reported, Congo recently made news in the White House when President Donald Trump hosted Foreign Ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign a historic peace agreement, ending years of conflict between those two countries.
Apparently, Congo security forces were in the area at the time of the Ituri province attack on Sunday.
“We are truly disappointed because it is incredible that such a situation could occur in a town where all the security officials are present,” Duranthabo said. “Some citizens have started fleeing the area and are heading towards Bunia.”
Bunia is the capital city of the Ituri province about 45 miles from the Ugandan border.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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