According to Rams Malikidogo, a human rights campaigner in Mambasa, the victims were apprehended during many attacks on neighboring villages and subsequently “grouped in the forest to be executed”.
Twenty civilians have been slain by suspected Daesh-affiliated ADF rebels in the northeastern Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to local reports.
Police Administrator Matadi Muyapandi said on Thursday that “the victims were taken hostage Tuesday during an ADF raid” at Babila Babombi, a neighborhood in Mambasa, an area frequently targeted by ADF and other militia groups.
He stated, “There are 20 dead—16 men and 4 women,” and added that four of the escapees had been taken to the hospital.
“The ADF, who were mostly Ugandan rebels at first, had decapitated the victims, which was their modus operandi.” Over the past thirty years, the ADF has built a presence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing thousands of civilians.
There have been several of these attacks in recent months.
According to Rams Malikidogo, a human rights campaigner in Mambasa, the victims were apprehended during many attacks on neighboring villages and subsequently “grouped in the forest to be executed”.
When contacted by phone, a local relief worker who asked to remain anonymous stated, “The victims are gold miners, traders, and farmers.”
“We need the presence of the military to recover the bodies and bury them with dignity,” he continued, adding that the killings had taken place in a remote area.
In 2019, the ADF swore allegiance to the terrorist organization Daesh, which regards them as its branch in central Africa.
The ADF is alleged to have orchestrated attacks in Uganda, a neighbor, and massacred civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Ugandan and Congolese forces have been working together to combat the ADF in North Kivu and the neighboring province of Ituri since the end of 2021, but they have not been able to stop the fatal attacks on civilians thus far.
However, some experts think that the operations have just forced the rebels to relocate to hard-to-reach locations where they still attack civilians.
