Dozens killed in attack on church in the eastern DR Congo

Dozens of of us were killed on Sunday in an attack on a church in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo believed to had been completed by Islamic Convey-backed rebels.

Civil society leaders stated suspected participants of the Allied Democratic Power (ADF) stormed the building in the city of Komanda, armed with machetes and weapons.

The attack took predicament as Catholic Christians attended an overnight prayer vigil at the church, high-tail by the Caritas charity.

Several houses and shops were also burnt down and the search continues for missing of us.

Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda in Ituri province, stated it became once “incredible” that an attack esteem this may possibly possibly occur in a city where security officials are most recent.

He has demanded a militia intervention as soon as imaginable saying they had been instructed that “the enemy is still shut to our city”.

The ADF, with ties to the Islamic Convey, a riot community that operates in the borderland between Uganda and the DRC, has routinely conducted attacks against civilians.

It became once fashioned by disparate tiny groups in Uganda in the unhurried Nineteen Nineties following alleged discontent with Yoweri Museveni.

In 2002, following militia assaults by Ugandan forces, the ADF moved its actions to neighbouring DRC and has since been responsible for the killings of thousands of civilians.

The United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Congo has condemned a fresh resurgence in violence in Ituri.

Earlier this month, ADF killed dozens of of us in the province in what a UN spokesperson described as a “bloodbath”.

The DRC navy has long struggled against the riot community, and has now been grappling with a advanced web of attacks since renewed hostilities with the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.