On September 8, around 9 PM, the jihadist group ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) attacked the village of Nyoto, in the Congolese province of North Kivu, killing at least 72 Christians. About 40 terrorists armed with machetes and rifles burst into a house where the faithful were participating in a funeral vigil and carried out a massacre.
The attackers also set fire to automobiles and between 15 and 30 homes before escaping. Law enforcement arrived late, when the jihadists had already vanished. Testimonies indicate that most of the victims were beheaded or mutilated with machetes. Among the dead are women, children, and entire families.
ISIS Claims Responsibility for the Massacre
According to La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, the ADF pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2016 and since 2019 have been part of the so-called Central Africa Province (ISCAP). True to its strategy, ISIS hurried to claim the attack, boasting of having killed nearly a hundred Christians.
The Italian media outlet explains that this type of claim not only seeks to terrorize local populations but also to display power against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, attract new recruits, and pressure authorities and security forces, weakening their response capacity.
A Chain of Attacks Against Christian Communities
The Nyoto attack adds to other recent ones. At the end of July, the ADF assaulted a Catholic church in Komanda, in the neighboring province of Ituri, killing at least 43 people, including nine children, during a nighttime vigil.
In February, the jihadists carried out another atrocity in a Protestant church in Kasanga, where they locked up 70 villagers for several days before brutally murdering them with machetes and hammers.
Additionally, following the Nyoto massacre, ISIS claimed five other recent attacks, including one near Beni, in North Kivu, where another 18 Christians were killed.
A Government Unable to Stop the Violence
The Congolese government assured in a statement that it has strengthened humanitarian support in North Kivu and promised to intensify military operations against the terrorists. However, the facts demonstrate the ineffectiveness of these measures.
La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana mentions the researcher Onesphore Sematumba, from the International Crisis Group think tank, who denounces that state interventions, weak and uncoordinated, have only dispersed the jihadist groups into smaller cells, which continue to attack with equal or greater ferocity.
The metaphor used by the expert is clear: “It is the phenomenon of kicking an anthill; they scatter, but attack with all possible rage.”