Good Friday Massacre of Christians in Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Islamic State Central Africa Province, known as ISCAP or the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), carried out a series of attacks on Christian communities in eastern Democratic Republic of The Congo in March and April 2026.

The ADF originated as a Ugandan Islamist rebel group, made contact with the Islamic State as early as 2017, was formally recognized as a chapter of ISCAP in 2018, and pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2019.

The group is referred to interchangeably as ADF, ISCAP, and ISIS-DRC. Since violence escalated in December 2024, ISCAP has claimed the killing of at least 850 Christians in eastern DRC.

In February 2026, ADF fighters executed around 70 civilians in a Christian village in North Kivu, beheading men, women, children, and the elderly.

On March 10, ISCAP fighters captured and beheaded two Christians from the village of Mayuano in Ituri province. Three days later, on March 13, militants attacked Mushasha village, killing 17 Christians and abducting around 100 others.

The attackers burned homes and targeted a Chinese-owned gold mine and a nearby military base at the site.

On March 11 and March 16, ADF fighters attacked the villages of Muchacha and Babesua, also in Ituri province, killing 50 people and forcing more than 31,600 inhabitants to flee, according to Open Doors UK and Ireland.

On March 16, ADF militants also attacked a church-run hospital in Byambwe, North Kivu, killing around 20 civilians.

The attackers killed patients, including women in a maternity ward, looted medical supplies, and burned the hospital along with nearby homes before fleeing.

These attacks follow a pattern of violence that included a 2025 massacre at a church in Komanda, Ituri, in which 34 people were killed.

The ADF has targeted civilians in villages, churches, hospitals, and along roads, often killing with machetes and abducting children for recruitment.

Missionaries operating in the region described widespread fear and displacement, with many attacks going unreported.

They also criticized the international community’s lack of response, pointing to the region’s valuable natural resources as a factor contributing to continued violence and external support for armed groups.

On Good Friday, April 3, ADF fighters attacked the Christian village of Bafwakao in Mambasa territory, Ituri province, at around 7 p.m. local time.

Some victims were killed with machetes, others burned alive in their homes, and two people were abducted. Forty-four houses and several vehicles were destroyed.

The Congolese army confirmed 43 killed; ISCAP claimed 60 in a Telegram post. Regional army spokesperson Lieutenant Jules Tshikudi Ngongo put the toll at “43 compatriots killed and 44 houses torched.”

The Mambasa territorial administrator told Reuters that search operations were continuing and the death toll could rise. ISCAP’s figures are unverified, and the group is known to exaggerate casualties.

The Good Friday attack coincided with broader ISIS threats during the Easter period. According to the International Business Times, ISIS used its weekly Al-Naba newsletter to call for attacks across Europe, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Tunisia, and Morocco, citing restrictions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque as justification.

ISIS claimed in the same newsletter to have inflicted 60 casualties across 15 operations in the preceding week, figures that have not been independently verified and consistent with the group’s pattern of using al-Naba to project strength.

In a March 31 report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said the ADF has been “carrying out a sustained pattern of attacks in eastern DRC that represents a direct assault on religious freedom, particularly for Christian communities in North Kivu and Ituri provinces,” and that “early 2026 has brought no respite from ADF violence.”

The Congolese army has struggled to contain the group while simultaneously battling the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel movement, which seized Goma, the largest city in eastern DRC, and several other cities in 2025.

The ADF avoids direct combat with the army, instead targeting civilian populations as a means of undermining peace efforts and retaliating against military pressure, according to Congolese army spokesperson Ngongo.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in a March 2026 report, described the ADF as an acute threat to religious freedom in the DRC.

USCIRF traced the group’s origins to the mid-1990s in Uganda, where militants espousing a violent interpretation of Islam joined with armed opposition elements seeking to overthrow the Ugandan government.

Ugandan military operations forced the group into eastern DRC in the early 2000s, where it established a foothold in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, funding operations through the looting of metals and rare earth minerals.

The group began aligning with ISCAP in 2017, formally pledging allegiance in 2019 and rebranding as ISIS-DRC.

USCIRF noted that the ADF does not exercise sustained territorial control, instead maintaining dominance through elusive, mobile operations, a factor that prevents it from meeting the threshold for designation as an Entity of Particular Concern under the International Religious Freedom Act.

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