Born as Zaire (renamed in 1997), possessing vast mineral riches and nearly unanimously Christian, the DRC has followed a familiar African pattern: Western colonisation followed by independence, civil war, fragmentation and dictatorship. The current situation, as summed up by Freedom House: “political corruption, weak rule of law, and violence”. For the past two decades, a Uganda-born rebel movement has taken root in eastern DRC, obtaining the support of jihadist organisations. A 2017 United Nations report concluded that the increasingly Islamist rebel movement has been responsible for “widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law”.
Slashed by machetes and left for dead in the DRC
In the volatile province of North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a father of three has described how Islamist militants carrying guns and machetes almost killed him. Jean*, who’s recovering in hospital from his injuries, was attacked while walking home from work, when he ran into rebels. […]
DR Congo: 7 killed by suspected Islamist militants
A fresh attack in the volatile region of Beni, in eastern DR Congo, has left at least seven dead. The night raid on 22 Sep., which targeted communities in Kasinga, about 5km from the town of Beni, was carried out by suspected Islamist militants from the ADF-NALU group, local sources […]
DRC pastor – ‘We don’t understand why this is happening to us’
A relatively unknown militant group has intensified attacks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), raising fears of the emergence of a new jihadist organisation in central Africa. For years now, one of various rebel groups operating there, the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces-National Association for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU), […]
UPDATE: Attack by suspected militants leaves 7 dead in DRC
UPDATE (5 August): Seven people have lost their lives following an attack by suspected Ugandan Islamist rebels from the ADF – in Oicha, in DRC’s troubled eastern North-Kivu province. The 30 July attack took place at about 5.30pm, local sources told World Watch Monitor; the Congolese army, supported by UN […]
NGOs appeal to Congo’s President to stop ‘massacre’
Local civil society organisations have written to Congolese President Joseph Kabila to denounce the ongoing killings of people in eastern DR Congo, particularly in Beni and Lubero (North Kivu Province). They say the violence has so far claimed 1,116 lives between October 2014 and May 2016. That’s an average of […]
DR Congo death toll nears 50 after second attack
At least a further nine people have been killed in another attack by suspected Islamist militants in the eastern extremes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, bringing the total killed in the past week to nearly 50. World Watch Monitor reported last week that between 20 and 40 villagers […]
DR Congo – Christians killed, as thousands flee continuing Islamist violence
Islamist militants are suspected to have killed between 20 and 40 villagers in the eastern extremes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to news reports and a World Watch Monitor source. Attackers carried machetes and axes into a village in North Kivu province, in eastern DRC, late in […]
DRC: calls for inquiry into massacres in Beni
Militants of the radical Islamist group ADF-Nalu group enjoy complicity in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the part of “uncontrolled elements of Ugandan army and security forces”. This was affirmed in a statement following a meeting of “Social Dialogue on the persisting presence of ADF and allies in the […]
The war on Christianity in the Congo
While the brutality of the so-called Islamic State has concentrated world attention on Iraq and Syria, lesser-noticed movements inspired by IS are taking root far from the Middle East. In central Africa, a brutal militant Islamic group has embedded itself in the eastern extremes of the Democratic Republic of the […]
Foreign jihadists are fighting in DRC
There are foreign fighters operating in the ranks of the ADF-NALU, a group of militants originally rooted in a rebel movement to overthrow Uganda’s government, but forced to re-locate over the border into North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), reports Fides. On 16 October, a UN report said […]