ICC Note: Violence in DRC’s North and South Kivu states continues to grow worse. Five people were killed recently, when Muslim Defense International, an Islamic Extremist group attacked a convoy of trucks. There have been an estimated 215 killings, 334 abductions and 75 kidnappings in this region in the first three months of the year.

04/25/2018 DRC (World Watch Monitor) – Fresh violence in the volatile region of North Kivu, in eastern DRC, claimed at least five lives over the weekend.

According to local sources, the victims were killed as armed men believed to be militants of Muslim Defense International attacked a convoy of trucks on Friday night (20 April) near the town of Kitchanga, about 10km from the city of Beni. Three trucks were set on fire and an undetermined number of people are now missing.

Numerous foreign armed groups, including the radical Islamist group Muslim Defense International, formerly known as Allied Democratic Forces-National Association for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU), are active in eastern DRC, committing all sorts of human rights abuses.

ADF-NALU was originally rooted in a rebel movement to overthrow Uganda’s government and replace it with an Islamic state, but was forced to re-locate over the border into DRC. The group has been trying to uproot Christians from north-eastern DRC through attacks, rape, looting, kidnap and murder.

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