Christian worshippers killed in IS-linked attack in DR Congo
It has since become part of the Islamic State's Central African Province, which also includes a group in Mozambique.According to research by BBC Monitoring, nearly 90% of IS operations are now carried out by affiliates in Africa.Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, told the Associated Press that more bodies could be found after the latest attack."More than 21 people were shot dead inside and outside [the church] and we have recorded at least three charred bodies and several houses burned. But the search is continuing." Father Aime Lokana Dhego, a local priest, told the AFP news agency: "We have at least 31 dead members of the Eucharistic Crusade movement, with six seriously injured. Some young people were kidnapped, we have no news of them." He added that seven other bodies had been found elsewhere in the town.The UN-sponsored Radio Okapi website put the number of dead at 43.A spokesperson for the army said he could confirm 10 deaths.In 2021, DR Congo invited Ugandan troops into the country to help tackle the ADF. Attacks however still continue.Komanda is in DR Congo's mineral-rich Ituri province, which has been fought over by various armed groups for many years.
ADF: The Ugandan rebels working with IS in DR CongoInside view of the IS-linked ADF rebels
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
A year after anti-immigrant riots in Britain, many worry it could happen again
The killing of three girls at a summer dance class in England a year ago Tuesday, by a teenager misidentified as a migrant, triggered days of street violence directed at newcomers and minorities. In the aftermath, communities came together to clear up the physical damage — but repairing the country's social fabric is harder. Experts and community groups warn that the mix of anger, fear, misinformation and political agitating that fueled the violence remains. In recent weeks it has bubbled over again on the streets of Epping, near London. 'Given a trigger event, none of the conditions of what happened last year have gone away,' said Sunder Katwala of British Future, a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity. He said there is a 'tense and quite febrile atmosphere' in some parts of the country. A solemn anniversary Three minutes of silence will be held Tuesday in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England, where the stabbing attack left three girls under 10 dead and eight children and two adults wounded. Over the following days, violence erupted in Southport and across England, driven partly by online misinformation saying the attacker was a migrant who had arrived in the U.K. by small boat. Because of British contempt of court and privacy laws, authorities were initially slow to disclose the suspect's identity: Axel Rudakubana, a British-born 17-year-old obsessed with violence. He later pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a life sentence. In the week after the attack, crowds in more than two dozen towns attacked hotels housing migrants, as well as mosques, police stations and a library. Some rioters targeted non-white people and threw bricks and fireworks at police. With a few days, larger numbers of people took to the streets to reclaim their communities, sweeping up broken glass and sending a message of welcome to newcomers. Tinderbox Britain A year on, the sight of migrants crossing the English Channel in dinghies — more than 22,000 so far this year — provides a focus for those concerned about the impact of immigration. Those concerns are often amplified by online rumor, scapegoating and misinformation, some of it deliberate. Add a sluggish economy, high housing costs, frayed public services and widespread distrust in politicians, and Britain, in the view of many commentators, has become a 'tinderbox.' Nigel Farage, leader of hard-right political party Reform UK, said last week that the country is close to 'civil disobedience on a vast scale.' The left-of-center Labour government agrees there is a problem. At a Cabinet meeting last week, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner noted that 17 of the 18 places that saw the worst disorder last year were among the most deprived in the country. She said that Britain is 'a successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith country,' but the government must show it has 'a plan to address people's concerns and provide opportunities for everyone to flourish.' The government has pledged to stop migrants trying to reach Britain across the Channel and to end the practice of lodging asylum-seekers in hotels, which have become flashpoints for tension. Critics say the government risks legitimizing protesters who in many cases are driven by intolerance and want to drive immigrants from their homes. In Ballymena, Northern Ireland, last month, rioters threw bricks, bottles, petrol bombs and fireworks and firebombed immigrants' houses after two Romanian-speaking 14-year-old boys were charged with sexual assault. Hundreds of people have protested this month outside a hotel housing asylum-seekers in Epping, a town on the edge of London, after a recently arrived migrant from Ethiopia was charged with sexual assault. He denies the charge. Scattered protests Protesters in Epping and a handful of other communities this summer have included local people, but also members of organized far-right groups who hope to capitalize on discord. Tiff Lynch, who heads the Police Federation officers union, wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that the Epping disorder was 'a reminder of how little it takes for tensions to erupt and how ill-prepared we remain to deal with it.' Learning from last summer's violence, where the police and courts responded quickly to detain and charge hundreds of suspects, police have charged more than a dozen people over violence in Epping. A protest and antiracist counter-demonstration in the town on the weekend were peaceful. The online realm is harder to police. The British government, like others around the world, has struggled with how to stop toxic content on sites including X. Under the ownership of self-styled free-speech champion Elon Musk, X has gutted teams that once fought misinformation and restored the accounts of banned conspiracy theories and extremists. The government has cited the amount of time people spend alone online as a factor behind polarization and fraying social bonds. Grounds for optimism Families of the three girls who died in Southport — Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and 6-year-old Bebe King — have called for quiet and respectful commemorations. Local authorities have asked people not to lay flowers, but to consider donating to causes set up in the victim's memories. The team behind Elsie's Story, a children's charity set up by Stancombe's family, posted on Instagram: 'Our girls, our town, will not be remembered for the events of that day, but for everything we are building together.' Katwala said that despite a 'sense of disconnection and frustration at national politics and national institutions,' there are grounds for optimism. 'Britain is less heated and less polarized than the United States, by quite a long way,' he said. 'People's interpersonal trust remains quite high. Seven out of 10 people think their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well. They're just worried about the state of the nation.'
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
CNN anchor Erin Burnett blasted for describing NYC shooter as 'possibly white'
CNN anchor Erin Burnett is facing scrutiny after describing the gunman who killed four people in Midtown Manhattan overnight as 'possibly white' despite surveillance footage showing he was not. Burnett angered some on social media on Monday night after describing gunman Shane Tamura, 27, from footage shared by authorities showing him holding an AR-15. Tamura was seen walking into the 345 Park Avenue skyscraper with 'sunglasses, mustache, male, possibly white' Burnett and her co-anchor said. Images of Tamura strolling into the scene with the gun by his waist circulated widely across social media, with many remarking that he had a darker complexion that Burnett's description. Although some said that the shooter's race was 'irrelevant', others said Burnett was premature in her assessment live on the air. It comes as authorities said that Tamura, from Nevada, killed four people in a horror spree on Monday before turning the gun on himself. Investigators said that it is possible he was targeting the National Football League, which is located at 345 Park Avenue. He was found with a letter on his body indicating he had grievances with the NFL and its handling of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) after the rampage. In the note he railed against the NFL and pleaded for his brain to be studied. 'Terry Long football gave me CTE and it caused me to drink a gallon of antifreeze,' Tamura wrote, according to CNN. 'You can't go against the NFL, they'll squash you.' The shooter was referring to former Pittsburgh Steeler Terry Long, who committed suicide by drinking antifreeze in 2006 after suffering from CTE. 'Study my brain please I'm sorry Tell Rick I'm sorry for everything,' the note read. Tamura killed three people in the lobby of the skyscraper - NYPD officer Didarul Islam, a 36 year-old father of two, as well as a second unnamed security guard who tried to take cover behind a security desk, as well as an undentified woman who tried to hide behind a lobby pillar. A third man was shot and critically-injured in the lobby. Tamura then called an elevator and rode to building management firm Rudin's 33rd floor offices where he shot his fourth victim - whose identity has not been released. Tamura subsequently ended the massacre by taking his own life.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Fury as terrified Jewish father and his six-year-old son are 'attacked and called murderers' by enraged pro-Palestine crowd after stopping at Italian motorway service station
A furious row has erupted in Italy after a man claims he and his six-year-old son were attacked at a motorway service area by an enraged pro-Palestinian crowd. The man, who has not been named, and his son had stopped to use the facilities at the rest area while driving from Milan to their home in Paris after a holiday. They were both wearing traditional Jewish kippahs and attracted the attention of people at the services near Lainate on the main Milan-Lagi motorway. The father, who managed to capture the incident on video as he and his son were insulted and attacked, said they were both left 'terrified'. In the clip which was later uploaded to social media, a group of people can be heard shouting in Italian 'Palestina Libera '(Free Palestine)' and 'Go back home'. Others also shout in Italian 'Assassini' (murderers) while another adds: 'This isn't Gaza, here is Italy' and another can be heard shouting: 'You will go to hell sooner or later'. The man's son, can clearly be seen in the clip, and he looks on with a scared look on his face as the crowd increased their hostility At one point, the video appears to shake, as the man claims he is pushed to the floor and then kicked with the crowd demanding he delete the video. Police eventually arrived after ten minutes and the man and his son were questioned about what happened. The video was shared on several anti Semitic campaign groups, with one commentator writing:' This is how it started in the Netherlands when I was a boy in 1941. I'm seeing it happen all over again.' In an interview with Italian media, the man, named only as Eli, 52, said:' We were on our way back from a trip to Lake Maggiore and I was with my youngest son, his sister and her husband, who is Italian. 'We were driving back to Milan and then I was going to carry on back to Paris where I live and manage a clothes store. 'I was heading towards the bathroom when one of the cashiers saw me and shouted Free Palestine' and it was him who sparked everything off. 'I gestured that I couldn't speak Italian but that he should stop, and I then started to film him and at that point others joined in. 'People were shouting 'killers' and 'genocide' and I was trying to protect my young son and then tried to walk us both to the bathroom. 'When we came up the stairs from the bathroom, there was a crowd there and they told me to delete the video and started pushing me. The man – who managed to capture the incident on video as he says he and his son were insulted and attacked – said they were both left 'terrified'. 'At that point I lost sight of my son, and I thought I have to defend myself but I ended up on the ground. 'They were like animals kicking me. I couldn't see my son but fortunately a woman had taken him away and was looking after him in a corner. I saw wild animals.' When asked if he had expected something like this he said: 'Frankly, yes because of the climate of hate in Europe but I didn't expect it in Italy, I thought it was a tolerant country. 'I'm still shocked, the police questioned me for two hours after it happened and they are still investigating, things like this are happening all too frequently now. Later writing on X, Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini said:' What happened in the service area at Lainate is very serious. 'A father and his six-year-old son on holiday in Italy, attacked and insulted purely because they are Jewish, and called murderers. 'I had hoped that Jew baiting had ended with the death of Nazi fascism, it is unacceptable that in 2025 in our country it is still happening.' A spokesperson for Milan police said: Officers were called to the service area on Sunday evening (27 July) and are investigating the incident. 'CCTV from the scene has been obtained and is being examined, and also cameras in the car parking area are being looked at as some suspects went in that direction. 'We will be looking to see if any of those caught on film can be identified.'
