Allied Democratic Forces increases operations against civilians in retaliation against DRC army

Hossam al-Haddad

Local authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Saturday evening, October 31, blamed an armed extremist group that killed at least 17 civilians on Friday in an attack on a village in the east of the country.

The army confirmed the attack took place in North Kivu province, but declined to say how many people had been killed.

United Nations statistics indicate that the armed Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) group, which has been active in eastern Congo since the 1990s, has killed more than a thousand civilians since the beginning of 2019, despite repeated military campaigns to destroy it.

Reprisal attacks against civilians have increased dramatically since the army launched an operation a year ago against the ADF, expelling them from several bases near the Ugandan border.

Freeing prisoners

On October 21, the mayor of Beni, in eastern DRC, said that armed men had freed more than 1,300 inmates from the town’s prison in a coordinated attack, pointing the finger of blame at the ADF.

Mayor Modeste Muhindo Bwakanamaha said that out of more than 1,456 prisoners, including a number of militia fighters, only 110 were left, after the simultaneous early morning attack on Kangbayi central prison in Beni and the army camp protecting it. “The attackers, who came in large numbers, managed to smash the gate with electrical equipment… We believe that this was the work of the ADF,” he added in statements to Reuters.

Latest operations

On October 29, at least 18 people were killed and several others wounded in an attack by gunmen in Beni.

The DRC confirmed in a statement that the attack took place in a village in North Kivu, about 20 km west of the city of Oicha, but declined to mention the number of deaths. However, a human rights group and a local committee indicated that the attackers killed at least 18 people.

Escapes are common from overcrowded and poorly secured prisons. A similar number of inmates escaped when the prison was attacked in June 2017. Police said on Twitter that two prisoners were shot dead during the attack, which began around 4:30 in the morning. Kangbayi prison houses members of local rebel groups and ADF fighters.

The mayor said that there were rumors that ADF fighters in prison were preparing for an escape in recent days. By noon, about 20 inmates had returned to the prison, he added. There are more than 100 rebel groups operating in eastern Congo, many of them fighting for the country’s precious natural resources. Among those groups, the ADF, originally from Uganda, is accused of killing thousands of people.

ADF

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) is a Ugandan armed group that has been active in eastern Congo since the 1990s and has killed more than a thousand civilians since the beginning of 2019, according to United Nations figures, despite repeated military campaigns aimed at eliminating it.

The ISIS-managed Amaq News Agency said that the fighters of the terrorist organization’s Central African State Brigade carried out the attack. ISIS has previously claimed responsibility for several attacks that the ADF is suspected of being behind. However, UN experts have not found evidence of a direct link between the two organizations.