Open Doors UK, a human rights group focused on persecution against Christians, reported on Tuesday that a militant group affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) took 70 Christian villages hostage, marched them into their church, and then murdered them by cutting their heads off.
Open Doors quoted sources in the field who said the massacre took place on February 13, when a group of terrorists allegedly from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) surrounded the village of Maybe and forced residents from their homes.
The ADF allegedly rounded up a total of 70 Christian villages and forced them into a Protestant church in the nearby town of Kasanga. This church, like many in the area, had been abandoned by its congregants because the security situation was so dire.
The militants proceeded to murder all 70 of their hostages inside the church, with beheading reportedly their preferred method of execution. According to Open Doors’ sources, families of the deceased were too frightened to bury the dead until a week later and many of the surviving Christians have fled the area.
Members of the Congolese Red Cross carry body bags containing the remains of victims of the recent clashes in Bukavu on February 20, 2025 ahead of their burial. (AMANI ALIMASI/AFP via Getty Images)
“We don’t know what to do or how to pray. We’ve had enough of massacres. May God’s will alone be done,” said a church elder from CECA-20, the Evangelical Community in Central Africa.
The ADF is one of roughly a hundred armed militant groups vying for control of the mineral-rich eastern Congo. The ADF is linked to ISIS, and nominally dedicated to overthrowing the governments of the DRC and Uganda to create a “caliphate” like the one ISIS created in Syria and Iraq.
The Ugandan government has sent troops over the border into the DRC to fight the ADF, but those forces have proven distinctly unhelpful at controlling the much more powerful and aggressive M23 rebel group, which recently captured two major Congolese cities.
The ADF has been stepping up its activities in the northeastern DRC, killing at least 200 people in the past month alone, according to local media reports. Congolese officials said ADF killed 21 people in three different villages during Christmas week of 2024.
Regional security analysts said the ADF was pushed back into remote areas of the Congo’s North Kivu province by Ugandan troops, and the militants broke into smaller bands as they withdrew – but these gangs are eager to prove they remain a threat, and they like to demonstrate their lethality by attacking isolated villages and perpetrating mass slaughter.
“Open Doors strongly condemns this heinous act of violence against civilians and calls upon civil societies, governments and international organizations to prioritize civilian protection in eastern DRC where armed groups, such as the ADF, are operating,” Open Doors legal expert John Samuel said on Tuesday.
Social media users following the story complained that the February 13 church massacre has received almost no coverage from international media. One of the few public officials outside the DRC to comment on the story so far was Tristan Azbej, Hungary’s State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians.
Azbej said on Wednesday he was “horrified to learn about the 70 Christian martyrs beheaded by terrorists in a church in Kasanga, DRC.”
“Hungary stands in solidarity with the persecuted Christians, BUT we need more,” Azbej said. “The world needs to recognize and act against Christian persecution.”
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