At least ten people have been killed and 39 others injured in a bomb attack on Sunday on a church in Kasindi, a border town between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, according to the Congolese government, which attributed the attack to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The number of victims has been confirmed to the portal 7sur7 by the spokesman of the operational command Sokola I in the region of North Kivu, scene of the explosion, Captain Anthony Mualushayi. The military confirmed the arrest of a Kenyan suspect for questioning.
The government has «strongly» condemned this attack perpetrated in the middle of a mass celebrated in the 8th Community of Pentecostal Churches of Congo and which would be «evidently» the work of the ADF, according to the Congolese news portal Actualité.
«The security services have taken control of the site following an explosion that caused several deaths and material damage. The injured are being evacuated to medical facilities,» the Congolese Ministry of Communication has explained. «Investigations are underway to detect the origin of this terrorist act,» it added.
The authorities have reiterated the recommendations to «avoid crowds» and «be vigilant» in this area which is a recurrent target of ADF attacks, in particular on the Beni-Kasindi road.
The ADF is a Ugandan group created in the 1990s particularly active in eastern DRC and accused of killing hundreds of civilians in this part of the country.
The group went through a split in 2019 after Musa Baluku – sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States – swore allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA), under whose banner it has been acting ever since. The increase of its attacks on Ugandan soil and the claim of an attack in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, led both countries to launch joint operations in eastern DRC.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
