At least 70 bodies have been found beheaded in a church with most having been held hostage.
The horrific discovery was made in an abandoned village in the DR Congo this Friday. The victims, reported to be hostages of the ADF rebels, were found in a Protestant church in Kasanga, where people had left after repeated attacks.
Due to fighting involving the ADF, people had been forced to move to nearby villages in the war torn country. “70 bodies were discovered in the church. They were tied up near the locality of Mayba,” said Vianney Vitswamba, coordinator of the local community protection committee.
The ADF – Allied Defence Forces – are affiliated to ISIS and they are seen as the most deadly armed group in the region. The M23 – March 23 Movement – has previously been considered the greater threat and so has faced most international attention. Several Western countries including the United States and France have linked M23 with Rwanda but its government has denied the link.
The dead in the church massacre are understood to be among the dozens of people who have been reported missing since last Wednesday in the village. Horrific details from local media have revealed that they were decapitated using machetes.
Police pictured in the east of war torn Congo (
AFP via Getty Images)
It comes as Rwanda-backed rebels in eastern Congo entered the region’s second-largest city of Bukavu on Friday, local and civil society leaders said, the latest ground gained since a major escalation of their years-long fighting with government forces.
The M23 rebels entered the city’s Kazingu and Bagira zone and were advancing towards the centre of the city of about 1.3 million people, according to Jean Samy, vice-president of the civil society in South Kivu. He reported gunfire in parts of the city. Videos posted online appeared to show rebels marching toward the Bagira area. In one of the videos, a voice in the background shouted: “They are there… there are many of them.”
