The Army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has announced the release of 15 people kidnapped by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), linked to the jihadist group Islamic State, following an operation carried out in Ituri province, located in the east of the country.
Army spokesman in Ituri, Anthony Mualushayi, said the operation was launched after the Ugandan Armed Forces carried out bombing raids on an ADF camp in the area, which allowed the assault to begin.
«The target was destroyed. As a result, we were able to save more than 15 hostages held by the ADF,» he said, according to the Congolese news portal Actualité. He stressed that all of them «had a very difficult time with the terrorists».
Mualushayi specified that among those rescued there are women who «were sexually exploited», while the men «carried out transport tasks» and «were trained as fighters». «They need medical treatment,» he explained.
The ADF, 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, may be trying to return to operate in Uganda, from where it withdrew in 2003 after a series of military operations that drastically reduced its capacity to carry out attacks in the country.
The group underwent 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 operating ever since. The increase in his attacks and the claim of an attack in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, led both countries to launch the aforementioned joint operations in eastern DRC.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
