OAN’s Brooke Mallory
5:22 PM – Friday, June 7, 2024
Over sixty Christians were recently killed in a gruesome attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Masala area of Beni.
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The massacre has been attributed to ISIS, as the group has now claimed responsibility on Telegram, the UK’s Express outlet reported.
A much lower death toll was previously reported.
With a statement on their Telegram channel, the terrorist organization asserted its purported claim, writing: “Central African state: More than 60 Christians were killed, including a Congolese army officer, in an attack by Caliphate soldiers in eastern Congo.”
Attacks by Islamic terrorists have increased recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), especially in the eastern parts of the nation.
“This horrific attack has left a trail of devastation and despair, with the loss of life and destruction of property reaching catastrophic proportions,” said one survivor during an interview with International Christian Concern.
The recent claim by ISIS exemplifies a wider trend of violence in the region directed towards Christians.
At least 11 Christians were killed in an attack that occurred on May 13th in the Ituri Province village of Ndimbo. Numerous people were kidnapped, and houses were set on fire.
14 Catholics were also killed in an ambush carried out by the ISIS-affiliated militia known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). In the massacre that took place in the town of Eringeti, firearms and machetes were used to slaughter victims.
“Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported that many of the victims were ‘very young’ and were targeted for ‘refusing to convert into Islam,’” according to Express.
Over 100 armed factions and foreign forces have been fighting for control of the “vast mineral resources” in Eastern Congo for more than 30 years.
Since 1996, the toll has been enormous— as roughly six million people have been killed.
Since then, roughly a million Congolese have fled to neighboring countries like Angola, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia, and another 6.1 million have been internally displaced.
“ISIS–Democratic Republic of Congo (ISIS-DRC), also called ISIS–Central Africa and locally known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), is one of the deadliest militant groups in eastern Congo. The group began as an antigovernment insurgency in Uganda and was publicly recognized by ISIS leaders in Syria as an ISIS branch in 2019. ISIS-DRC follows ISIS’s strict interpretation of Islamic law and aims to extend ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliphate into central Africa,” according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s ‘Counter Terrorism’ guide.
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