Barnabas, Mission Partners of Castle Street, Missions

Barnabas Update – September 15th 2020

Jihadi attacks in the DRC

Barnabas Fund, 15 September 2020

At least 58 people were killed and 17 kidnapped when Muslim militants attacked two villages in the mainly-Christian north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo in early September. 

Twenty-three people were murdered on 8 September and another 35 were killed two days later. Large numbers of the population have since fled.

Members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist militant group active in the region for more than two decades, are thought to have carried out the atrocity. The terrorist group had entered the region to escape military action against them in neighbouring North Kivu province.

More than 700 people have been killed in Ituri province since 2017, according to the UN. The north-east region has seen a surge of violence since October 2019, when the army launched a large-scale offensive against the ADF.