Tragedy as Islamic militants kill 19 in terrorists attack

Tension brewed as suspected Islamist militants killed at least 19 persons and burnt a medical facility in a raid on a village in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday, two regional officials and a resident said.

NAN said the attack, which happened around 1:am (2300 GMT) in the village of Kirindera in North Kivu province, took place just a little kilometre from another attack on a village where at least 35 people were killed last week.

Military source had blamed last week’s attack on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan armed group based in eastern Congo that had sworn allegiance to Islamic State and conducts regular raids on villages.

Sadame Patanguli, a member of the local civil society and a resident of a nearby village, blamed today’s attack on the ADF too.

“Gunfire was heard around Kirindera. The ADF arrived, they set fire to a hospital after looting it with medicines, and they set fire to a hotel,” Patanguli said.

Patanguli added, the militants kidnapped many others, who are now missing.

The ADF was formed in Uganda before moving to eastern Congo in the 1990s and had been blamed for thousands of deaths in the last decade.

It would be recalled that Congo’s government had announced a state of siege in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province back in 2021 in an attempt to stem rampant militia violence in the nation’s vast mineral-rich east.

But the killings and rebel activity haven’t shown any sign of abating.