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Sunday, May 25, 2025

IS group says it killed more than 35 ‘Christians’ in Congo

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805 days ago
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Red Cross volunteers bury the remains of civilians killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo North Kivu province village of Mukondi, Thursday March 9, 2023. At least 36 were killed when the Allied Democratic Forces, a group with links to the Islamic State group, attacked the village and burned residents' huts. (AP Photo/Socrate Mumbere)

Red Cross volunteers bury the remains of civilians killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo North Kivu province village of Mukondi, Thursday March 9, 2023. At least 36 were killed when the Allied Democratic Forces, a group with links to the Islamic State group, attacked the village and burned residents' huts. (AP Photo/Socrate Mumbere)

The Is­lam­ic State group has is­sued a state­ment claim­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for killing more than 35 peo­ple and wound­ing dozens in east­ern Con­go.

In the state­ment, post­ed Fri­day by Aa­maq, the mil­i­tants’ news agency, it said it killed “Chris­tians” with guns and knives and de­stroyed their prop­er­ty in Mukon­di vil­lage in North Kivu province. It al­so pub­lished a pho­to of the hous­es on fire.

The an­nounce­ment comes af­ter lo­cal au­thor­i­ties con­firmed that at least 45 peo­ple were killed last week in sev­er­al at­tacks on dif­fer­ent vil­lages by rebels from the Al­lied De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Forces, a mili­tia with links to IS.

Con­flict has been sim­mer­ing in east­ern Con­go for decades as more than 120 armed groups fight for pow­er, in­flu­ence and re­sources, and some to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ties. The ADF has been large­ly ac­tive in North Kivu province but has re­cent­ly ex­tend­ed its op­er­a­tions in­to neigh­bour­ing Ituri province and to ar­eas near the re­gion­al cap­i­tal, Go­ma.

Ef­forts to stem the vi­o­lence against ADF have yield­ed lit­tle. A near­ly year-long joint op­er­a­tion by Ugan­da and Con­go’s armies did not achieve the ex­pect­ed re­sults of de­feat­ing or sub­stan­tial­ly weak­en­ing the group, said a re­port in De­cem­ber by a pan­el of U.N. ex­perts. The ADF rebels are ac­cused by the U.N. and rights groups of maim­ing, rap­ing and ab­duct­ing civil­ians, in­clud­ing chil­dren. Ear­li­er this month the Unit­ed States of­fered a re­ward of up to $5 mil­lion for in­for­ma­tion that could lead to the cap­ture of the group’s leader, Se­ka Musa Baluku.

On Thurs­day, AP re­porters saw bod­ies low­ered in­to a mass grave in Mukon­di. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers shov­elled dirt over the bod­ies against a back­drop of de­stroyed hous­es and said the gov­ern­ment wasn’t do­ing enough to pro­tect them.

“As you see in Mukon­di, it is al­ways the same. ADF, which is al­ways ill-in­ten­tioned against the Con­golese,” said Col. Charles Ehuta Ome­on­ga, mil­i­tary ad­min­is­tra­tor for Beni re­gion. “We lost many of our broth­ers,” he said.

The Unit­ed Na­tions peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Con­go has con­demned the killings and is urg­ing Con­go’s au­thor­i­ties to in­ves­ti­gate and bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice. —DAKAR, Sene­gal (AP)

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Sto­ry by SAM MED­NICK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press.  As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porter Maamoun Youssef con­tributed from Cairo.

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