Dozens of people were killed on Sunday in an attack on a church in eastern Congo by a rebel group linked to the Islamic State.
The rebels, armed with guns and machetes, attacked the church in the city of Komanda around 1 a.m. while more than 100 people were holding a nighttime prayer vigil, according to local residents. More bodies were found in burned houses nearby.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country, citing official reports, said that 43 people had died, including nine children. The Congolese Army said about 40 had been killed.
Children, mostly between the ages of 12 and 14, were taken hostage, according to the priest at the church, Sainte Anuarite. The parish was holding a celebration for its 25th anniversary when it was attacked.
Missionaries from Italy serve in the church, and the country’s deputy prime minister condemned the assault, saying that places of worship must be protected.
In a letter shared with The New York Times, the church had in June requested security from the local authorities ahead of the events. “Unfortunately, no intervention took place during the attack,” said Father Aimé Lokana Dhego, the priest at the church. He said the army and U.N. forces arrived only afterward “to count and assess the dead and damages.”
Johnny Luboya, the governor of Ituri Province, where the assault took place, did not respond to a request for comment.
The attack raised questions about the sustainability of ongoing peace efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The country has in recent months negotiated a series of deals, including a U.S.-brokered peace agreement with Rwanda and a related deal, mediated by Qatar, with the Rwanda-backed militia M23. But armed groups with ethnic and religious leanings have stepped up attacks in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, along the border with Uganda and Rwanda.
Last week, the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo condemned the resurgence of violence, citing nearly half a dozen attacks, mainly in Ituri Province.
The Islamic State-affiliated group behind Sunday’s attack, the Allied Democratic Forces, has been linked to more than 80 civilian deaths in attacks over the past three weeks, according to the U.N. mission and local media. That armed group is just one of several carrying out violence, mostly against civilians, in the Ituri and North Kivu areas.
More than one hundred militia and rebel groups operate within the Democratic Republic of Congo. The most powerful of them, M23, now controls large areas of eastern Congo, including the city of Goma, after months of fighting with the Congolese Army and an allied militia known as the Wazalendo.
Fighting in those areas has continued, albeit not at the levels seen in January and February. Congo and M23 signed a preliminary document last week saying they would sign a peace deal in mid-August. But on Friday, an M23 spokesman accused Congo of violating all the agreements it has made, saying he feared the deal would be “stillborn.”
The document signed last week came after a U.S.-backed agreement between Rwanda and Congo signed in June.
It is not clear whether there is any direct link between the peace deals and the intensified violence in Ituri and North Kivu. The Allied Democratic Forces, which was formed in the 1990s, set up camps in North Kivu and Ituri in February.
Analysts say that group, like M23, has changed its strategy from raids to territorial control and expansion, forcing people in the areas they hold to learn the Quran. The groups also collect “taxes” from local residents and charge fees for farmers to access their land.
Saikou Jammeh is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Dakar, Senegal.
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