More attacks in DRC claim an estimate 100+ Christian lives

Between Monday the 8^th September and Tuesday the 9^th September, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacks in two more communities left an estimated more than 100 people dead.  These form part of a spate of recent attacks that have killed large numbers, including an attack at the end of July that left nearly 50 dead in Komanda, northwest of Beni. 

The carnage started at about 9PM on Monday night in the community of Ntoyo, Lubero territory in North Kivu when the attackers struck people attending a wake of a Catholic church member.

“The victims were caught off guard at a mourning ceremony in the village of Ntoyo at around 9 p.m., and most of them were killed with machetes,” Macaire Sivikunula, a local administrator told Reuters news.

Col Alain Kiwewa, the military administrator for Lubero, told Reuters the toll was around 60 and could rise as there were still people missing.

Then in the early hours of Tuesday, September 9 the same group attacked the Christian dominated community of Potodu in the Beni territory and killed another 30 people. Lubero and Beni territories are nearly 100km apart.

Sources say at least 100 people were also abducted in this event. Many remain unaccounted for and the death toll is expected to rise. Homes, motorbikes and other vehicles were also destroyed.

Videos shared via messaging apps, show the bloodbath in Ntoyo – bodies strewn on the ground and stacked in mud huts. The surviving families’ shrieks of agony can be heard in the video as they express pain at this umpteenth attack on their communities. 

“It’s horrible what I saw. They killed almost all the people gathered at the place of mourning,” Abbé Paluku Nzalamingi, parish priest of Manguredjipa, who went to the scene of the tragedy, told local news site actualite.cd.  

“Women on mattresses in the living room…others in the corridor, still others outside in the plot. In any case, many had been shot dead. Some bodies are on the road, in plots close to the centre of Ntoyo. I was unable to count them, but I can say that there are at least 70 people. Most of them were shot dead”, he reported of the scenes he saw. 

The massacre is the third major attack in the region in recent months. In July, militants killed nearly 50 Christians during an overnight prayer meeting. Initial reports indicated the killing of around 30 people, but as time passed, the toll was adapted to around 50 dead.

Amora Faraja, a spokesperson for Open Doors, told Premier Christian News:

“The Church is really shaken by all these attacks because it’s not the first, it’s not the second, it’s not the tenth. It’s attacks that come over and over, they are repeated…some are just crying out ‘God, until when?'”

Displaced

The attacks have sent many people fleeing the villages in great panic. Following the attack in Potodu, those who have mustered courage to remain, now spend their nights with host families in Oicha city centre. Those who fled the Ntoyo attack went to surrounding areas they deem safer.

Rev. Alili of the 3e CBCA church Njiapanda, whose church has received some of those fleeing Ntoyo said, “Christians are disoriented because it was the time when they went to harvest their padi [crop] but look what’s happening to them. We, the church, are short of what to sympathise with them. They are not willing to sleep in the church for fear of being attacked like those who were killed in a wake”.

“May God come to our rescue because we are fed up with these killings in the Beni territory,” Pastor Paluku lamented.

“The massacres are weakening the faith of Christians. Last month it was still massacre after massacre, and in September, Lord, please come to our aid”, the cleric grieved. 

“The situation is critical in the Bapère sector in Lubero territory, where Christians are being massacred by Islamic terrorists. Please, brothers and sisters, let us unite in prayer to counter the enemy. God says if He does not watch over the house, those who watch, watch in vain. Let us pray together for the Christians of the east of the DRC”, Rev. Alili pleaded.