DR Congo: Jihadist Militants Massacre Nearly 90 Civilians Across Two Chiefdoms

Image: Jihad Watch

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) issued a sharp and unequivocal denunciation on Friday following a wave of brutal rebel assaults in the eastern province of North Kivu, where at least 89 civilians lost their lives.

In an official statement, the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) revealed that preliminary findings point to a series of coordinated attacks across the Bapere and Baswagha chiefdoms. These assaults resulted in the killing of 89 people, among them no fewer than 20 women and an unspecified number of children—an indication of the indiscriminate nature of the violence.

The attacks, carried out between November 13 and 19 across multiple localities in Lubero Territory, have been attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a long-standing militant organization operating in the region. MONUSCO’s report paints a harrowing picture of the brutality inflicted upon the population.

According to the mission, at least 17 civilians—including mothers and expectant women receiving care in the maternity ward—were slaughtered inside a Catholic Church-run health facility in Byambwe. The rebels reportedly torched four separate hospital wards sheltering patients, compounding the devastation. Beyond these killings, the attackers allegedly abducted civilians, plundered essential medical supplies, burned homes, and destroyed property—further destabilizing local communities already grappling with extreme humanitarian fragility.

The ADF, originally rooted in Uganda but now entrenched in eastern Congo, has been responsible for numerous atrocities over the years. In 2019, the group formally declared allegiance to ISIS (Daesh), a development that deepened regional insecurity and widened the scope of its violent ideology.

(This Article was originally published by Jihad Watch)