Threat from armed groups continue to be recorded in Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). The latest attacked has left five men and child killed in an overnight raid blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia near the eastern DR Congo city of Beni, local sources reported Tuesday, April 7.
The attack occurred in Halungupa, some 30 km (18 miles) from Beni in North Kivu province, according to local official John Kambale Sibendire and as confirmed by the local police chief.
In a measure aimed at curbing the spread the current pandemic of the Coronavirus, the region’s main three cities of Beni, Goma and Butembo have been cut off from the rest of North Kivu.
This region has faced significant challenges including armed conflict for the past 25 years and Ebola epidemic since August 2018.
Since 2014, ADF has been blamed of more than 1,000 civilian deaths and though the number of attacks have decreased, the armed militia group remains a formidable threat to DR Congo and the neighboring countries.
November last year saw an upsurge of attacks, with ADF militias killing civilians in reprisal for army operations launched against them in October.
The ADF began as an Islamist-rooted rebel group in Uganda that opposed President Yoweri Museveni.
It then fell back to North Kivu, DR Congo’s border province with Uganda, during the Congo Wars of the 1990s.
April 2019, the Islamic State militant group formally recognized its Central Africa Province in Democratic Republic of Congo, when its centrally controlled media outlets began to attribute attacks to ISCAP, and during his first video appearance in five years, the slain ISIS emir (leader) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was seen viewing a document entitled “Wilayat Central Africa.”
There was earlier evidence that ISIS had ties to the Allied Democratic Forces, but it remains unclear if the new ISIS affiliate is the ADF, a splinter group, or a different organization.
