SAEDNEWS: At least 21 people were killed on Sunday in an attack on church premises in eastern Congo by ISIL-backed rebels, according to a civil society leader.
The attack was carried out by members of the Allied Democratic Force (ADF) around 1 a.m. inside the premises of a Catholic church in eastern Congo’s Komanda. Several houses and shops were also burnt.
“More than 21 people were shot dead inside and outside and we have recorded at least three charred bodies and several houses burned. But the search is continuing,” Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, told The Associated Press.
Earlier this month, the group killed dozens of people in Ituri in what a United Nations spokesperson described as a bloodbath.
A spokesperson for the Congolese army in Ituri province, where Komanda is located, confirmed 10 dead.
“What we know this morning is that there was an incursion by armed men with machetes into a church not far from Komanda, where about 10 people were killed and massacred and some shops were set on fire,” Lt. Jules Ngongo, the DRC Army’s spokesperson in Ituri, said.
