At least 25 farmers were killed in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after an attack by Islamist insurgents from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) connected to the Islamic State terrorist group (IS). TASR writes about it according to Monday’s AFP report. ADF gunmen attacked several isolated villages in the forests of Ituri province on Sunday night. “The victims were tied up and hacked with machetes,” said a local aid worker. He said he saw more than 20 bodies.
„All the victims are farmers who had fields in the area,” local civil activist Leon Undemutau Manzaleke told AFP, while several people were kidnapped by the gunmen. The ADF attacks targeted farmers in their fields near the villages of Otmaber and Bwanasula, the sources said.
The eastern part of the DRC has been plagued by conflicts for three decades. The ADF was founded by former Ugandan rebels, and in 2019 the group pledged allegiance to IS. From 2021, the Ugandan army is also operating in the Congolese provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, which together with the DRC is fighting against ADF militants.
