At least 60 people were brutally killed overnight in eastern Congo when suspected Islamic State–linked rebels struck a village during a burial ceremony, an official confirmed.
The massacre occurred in Ntoyo, North Kivu province, where fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) ambushed mourners gathered for a funeral. Survivors described a horrifying scene in which militants forced villagers into one place before attacking with machetes.
“There were about 10 of them. I saw machetes. They told people to gather in one place and started cutting them. I listened to people screaming and I fainted,” said one woman who survived the attack, speaking anonymously to The Associated Press for fear of reprisals.
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Local administrator Col. Alain Kiwewa of Lubero territory said the death toll could rise further as authorities work to confirm the number of victims.
“The ADF attack caused around 60 deaths, but the final toll will be given later this evening because the territory has just deployed services to the area to count the number of beheaded people,” Kiwewa told the AP.
The ADF, a militia that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2019, has stepped up its campaign of terror across the Congo-Uganda borderlands. In July, the group carried out back-to-back massacres in Ituri province, including a church bombing that killed at least 34 in Komanda and another attack that left 66 dead in Irumu.
Despite joint military operations by Uganda and Congo, the group continues to target civilians, leaving eastern Congolese trapped between multiple conflicts. Government forces, already stretched thin by clashes with the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, have been unable to secure remote border villages.
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At the U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that the ADF has “taken advantage of the security vacuum.”
