Spanish
The death toll rose to 76 in the attack last night attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) - a rebel group with diffuse links to the Islamic State (IS), in a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), local civil society sources informed EFE this Tuesday.
"Following initial investigations, we now have 76 bodies, because the attackers took other people hostage and fled with them," Georges Mohindo, spokesperson for the civil society of the Bapere sector, where the attack occurred, told EFE, after local authorities put the death toll at more than 70.
"Therefore, the death toll could fluctuate at any moment and could even reach 100 people," Mohindo warned.
The attack was against people attending a wake in the village of Ntoyo, in the Bapere sector, located in North Kivu province.
"This is the tragedy. More than 70 dead, even though it's a small corner scattered among the fields that we can traverse and where we can find the rebels entrenched there," declared to the local media Actualité Mwami Eugène Viringa, administrative leader of Babika, one of the six territories that make up Bapere.
Father Paluku Nzalamingi, parish priest of Manguredjipa, Bapere territory, about seven kilometers from Ntoyo, told the same media that the attack began on Monday night around 10:00 p.m. local time (8:00 p.m. GMT) in a funeral home where dozens of people were gathered.
"What I saw was horrible. They killed almost everyone who was gathered at the funeral home. Women on mattresses in the deceased's living room, others in the hallway, and still others outside, in the plot. In any case, many were shot," reported Nzalamingi, who estimated the number of dead at "more than 70 people."
According to the religious leader, the attackers set fire to vehicles and homes in the village.
The ADF carried out the attack despite the presence in the area of a detachment of the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) and units of the Ugandan Army, according to local media.
The ADF is a rebel group of Ugandan origin with bases in North Kivu province and neighboring Ituri, where they constantly perpetrate attacks.
Their objectives are diffuse beyond a possible link with ISIS, which sometimes takes responsibility for their actions.
Although the experts of the United Nations Security Council found no evidence of direct support from ISIS to the ADF, the United States has identified them since March 2021 as "a terrorist organization" affiliated with the jihadist group.
Ugandan authorities also accuse the group of organizing attacks within their territory and, in November 2021, the Ugandan and DRC armies began a joint military operation, still ongoing, to fight against these rebels. Since 1998, eastern DRC has been mired in a conflict fueled by rebel militias and the Army, despite the presence of the UN mission in the country (Monusco).
