Middle East & Africa
Krishna with Flute
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Date of Event:
Feb 21, 2025
AFRICA/DR CONGO - Beheaded bodies of 70 people found in a Protestant church
Friday, 21 February 2025massacres jihadists
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - More than 70 bodies, including women, children and the elderly, were discovered on February 14 in a church of the Evangelical and Baptist Center of Congo and Africa (CEBCEA) in Kasanga, near the village of Maiba, in the Lubero area, in the province of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to reports by Radio Okapi, local civil society believes that these are the bodies of missing people kidnapped by unidentified gunmen on February 12. The bodies of the people, beheaded with machetes, were found with their hands tied behind their backs.
It is suspected that Islamists of the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces), a group originally from Uganda that has been active for decades in the east of the DRC, especially in North Kivu, committed the massacre. In 2019, the ADF joined the Islamic State (for the birth and development of the militia, see Fides, 24/6/2023), which further strengthens its "jihadist" profile.
The Ugandan army has increased its presence in the Congolese provinces of Ituri and North Kivu in recent days, officially to act against the ADF, but perhaps also to control (or support?) the offensive of the M23 and the Rwandan army in the Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 21/2/2025)
