At least three people were killed and 20 others abducted, including a doctor, in an attack late Wednesday by suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The head of Buliki, Muhindu Kalunga Meso, indicated in declarations granted to the Congolese news portal 7sur7 that the militiamen broke into the locality of Kabasha, located in the province of North Kivu, before adding that the balance of victims is provisional.
«They came from three directions, mainly from the back of the administrative building, a side of the health center and from Mondo,» said Meso, who added that among the fatalities there is a child.
He also noted that the ADF militiamen, who swore allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA), set fire to 16 stores before withdrawing from the area.
The ADF, a Ugandan group created in the 1990s that was particularly active in eastern DRC and accused of killing hundreds of civilians in this part of the country, may be attempting to return to operate in Uganda, from where it withdrew in 2003 after a series of military operations drastically reduced its capacity to carry out attacks in the country.
The ADF underwent a split in 2019 after Musa Baluku–sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States–swore allegiance to ISCA, under whose banner it has been operating ever since. Baluku succeeded Jamil Mukulu as the group’s leader after his 2015 arrest in Tanzania.
