At least 21 people were killed this week in a series of brutal attacks by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, an Islamic State-linked group, in the conflict-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local authorities reported on Saturday.
The attacks, which targeted villages near the mineral-rich town of Manguredjipa in North Kivu province, began on December 21 when ADF fighters stormed the village of Robinet, killing six people, according to Macaire Sivikunula, a representative for the local governor.
The violence escalated on December 22 in the neighboring village of Kodjo, where 12 more civilians lost their lives. On Christmas Day, the rebels struck again in Makele, a village located just seven kilometers from Manguredjipa, killing three more people.
The ADF, originally from Uganda, has been active in northeastern DRC since the mid-1990s, waging deadly attacks that have claimed thousands of civilian lives.
The group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) in 2019, with IS branding them as its Central Africa Province and often claiming responsibility for their assaults.
Despite ongoing military operations by Ugandan and Congolese forces, Sivikunula noted that the rebels’ decentralized and scattered nature makes them difficult to track and eliminate.
The region remains deeply troubled by overlapping insurgencies, including the M23 rebellion further south, exacerbating insecurity and instability in an area rich in natural resources but scarred by decades of violence.
