There are, in at least 10 countries in Africa, violent Islamist movements whose bloody methods mirror the pogrom by Hamas terrorists in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas-like groups and organizations built and guided by Islamic/jihadist principles are spread across these African countries, where they do to Africans (mostly to Christians but also to moderate Muslims) what was done to the Israelis. These countries are Nigeria, DR Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Somalia, Cameroon, Mozambique, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali.
One of the worst humanitarian crises is currently occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Islamist terror group ravaging it is ISIS (Islamic State)’s regional affiliate in the country. The group is locally known as the “Allied Democratic Forces” (ADF) or Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen (City of Monotheism and Jihadists‒MTM).
ISIS calls Congo its “Central Africa Province.” The United States designated ISIS-DRC as a foreign terrorist organization in 2021.
Christian women living in areas controlled by Islamic terrorists like the ADF face violent persecution for their faith. These women and girls are vulnerable to abduction, rape, trafficking, sexual slavery and forced marriage to Islamist fighters.
According to the U.S. State Department:
“Before pledging allegiance to ISIS in 2017, ADF had operated in the eastern DRC for years. Since 2013, ADF has perpetrated large-scale violence against civilians and asymmetric attacks against the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) and UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or MONUSCO) Peacekeepers, often in retaliation for military operations conducted against it.
“ISIS-DRC struck civilian targets primarily in rural areas but increased attacks in urban areas as well … ISIS-DRC conducted attacks on churches and health clinics, killing patients and medical professionals. The organization regularly claims responsibility for these acts on ISIS propaganda websites.”
Despite the country being predominantly Christian, in its 2024 World Watch List, Open Doors (an international human-rights organization) ranked the DRC as the 41st worst place for Christians. This ranking stems from the fact that rebel groups in the eastern regions of the country are targeting and killing them.
In a comprehensive report submitted to the United Nations, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) details the Islamist attacks against Christians of DRC:
“An Islamic extremist group called the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) that has pledged allegiance to ISIS is attacking and killing Christians in the DRC. Christians, particularly in the eastern part of the country, are being ruthlessly murdered, abducted and raped. Churches in that part of the DRC are being attacked. Further, the ADF terrorists kidnap Christian women, rape them and forcibly marry them to keep the women as ‘trophies.’
“Because of the violence in this region, many Christians have been forced to leave their homes in order to seek refuge. According to Eale Bosela, the regional director for the Association for Christian Theological Education in Africa, ‘[t]he Eastern Congo has become a theater of violent extremism’ and ‘[p]eople are being massacred like animals.’”
The ECLJ lists some of the terrorist attacks the ADF has committed in the DRC:
On Feb. 21, 2024, a group of Christians were murdered after ADF militants invaded a church meeting in the village of Manzia. These Christians had simply gathered together for a morning devotion when ADF men mercilessly fired shots into the church, killing at least fifteen people, including the lead pastor, whose three children and pregnant wife survived him. In the same month, ADF attacked a church in Bayeti, abducted the pastor and his wife, and killed five people, two of whom were the pastor’s children. February 2024 also saw ADF attack a Pentecostal church in the village of Beni, killing at least eight people and taking no less than 30 people hostage.
In November 2023, armed militants belonging to the ADF killed 19 villagers with machetes and other weapons in eastern DRC. Some villagers were reported to have drowned as they attempted to cross the Lamia River to flee the violence.
On Oct. 24, 2023, ADF militants raided a village in the North Kivu province at night. According to a local Christian youth leader, “[w]hen the people heard gunshots at the beginning, they thought thieves had come into the village which is not unusual but when the cracking of bullets lasted for an hour, they then knew it was the ADF.” During these attacks, ADF militants used guns and machetes to kill 26 Christians, at least 12 of whom were children. In addition to the senseless killings, militants also burned down 12 homes.
In the first two weeks of August 2023, ADF terrorists killed 55 civilians in the eastern regions of the DRC. In one of the attacks, militants killed 19 people in just one night.
Over a two-week period in March 2023, ADF militants killed seventy-two Christians in eastern DRC and displaced thousands more. In one of the attacks during that period, ADF butchered 31 Christians, most of whom were young children and women.
In January 2023, ADF militants reportedly detonated a bomb during a Christian church service in North Kivu province. The ADF killed fourteen Christians and injured 63.
On July 7, 2022, ADF attacked the predominantly Christian town of Lume and burned down a health center resulting in the deaths of four patients. In addition to those killed at the health center, militants also killed nine more civilians before leaving the town.
On June 25, 2022, ADF militants attacked a Christian community in eastern DRC. During the attack, militants killed six women and three men, and injured two others. Later that day, militants killed five men on a road leading towards the Ugandan border.
On Feb. 13, 2021, Islamic extremists raided a village in northeastern DRC. During the raid, the extremists burned down a Catholic church and killed 13 civilians.
Between Nov. 20 and Dec. 3, 2020, ADF militants killed more than 30 Christians across five villages in the northeastern region of the country. It was also reported that ADF militants raped 10 girls and kidnapped 15. One villager, who survived the attack, shared that ADF militants tried to force his wife and their four children to convert to Islam, but when they refused to convert, the militants shot his wife in the head while their four children were cut into pieces with a sword.
Located south of the Sahara in Central Africa, the DRC stands as the largest country in the Sub-Saharan region. Its population is about 98 million. The religious landscape is diverse, even though 95% are Christian. The Muslim population is around 1,427,000. The rest are Hindus, Buddhists, ethno-religionists, Jews, Baha’is, atheists and others.
The ongoing violence and insecurity have created a dire situation for civilians in the DRC, with Christians facing targeted pressure and violence. Open Doors notes that:
• Certain terrorist groups seek Islamization through violent means, forcibly marrying abducted women to militia leaders and subjecting others to a life of sexual slavery.
• These forced marriages are often early marriages, as sources report that elderly Muslim men often prefer young Christian girls.
• Women are sometimes raped next to bounded male hostages.
• Women and girls have also been known to be used as human shields during violent confrontations with government forces. The persecutors sometimes place women (even when pregnant) and small girls in front, knowing that they cannot be easily shot.
• Congolese Christian men face violent and extreme forms of persecution, including torture, maiming, abduction, forced recruitment into militia groups, forced labor, sexual mutilation, disemboweling and brutal killings.
• While women and girls face the highest rates of rape, men and boys also face conflict-related sexual violence.
• Joining the army in the DRC is voluntary but militia groups such as the ADF will force young men to join their ranks. To escape their kidnappers, men may be forced to pay large ransoms. These fines paralyze already impoverished families, sentencing them to live out the next few years in even more desperate poverty.
Escalating violence in the eastern DRC has displaced around 7.3 million people, according to the United Nations. More than 25.4 million people—a quarter of the population—face severe food insecurity and require assistance, with the most urgent humanitarian needs concentrated in those eastern provinces that are severely hit by violence and insecurity.
Islamic terrorists (alongside other rebel militia) are devastating a majority-Christian country in Africa. In eastern DR Congo, a crisis of violence has been going on for more than two decades. The mainstream media, human-rights organizations and universities are mostly silent and indifferent. But for the international community to help bring aid, security and freedom to the victims and to help stop the criminals, it must first acknowledge who the perpetrators are and what ideologies are driving them to commit these atrocities.