According to International Christian Concern, the Democratic Republic of Congo is “a predominately Christian nation….While a large majority (85-90%) of DRC’s population is Christian, violence rooted in Islamic extremism continues to worsen, putting the country at number 40 on the 2021 Open Doors World Watch List for Christian persecution. ‘These predominantly Christian communities are attacked by an Islamic extremist group with a clear Islamic expansionist agenda,’ Open Doors spokesperson Illia Djadi stated in reference to the rebel group.”
For more ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, see here.
“16 Killed in Attack in DR Congo’s Restive East: Army,” Agence France-Presse, August 3, 2021:
At least 16 people were killed in an attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict-plagued east, believed to be the work of armed Islamists, military and local sources said Tuesday.
According to local civilian sources the victims of Monday’s attack, including two women, had been taken hostage weeks earlier by members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which the US says is linked to the Islamic State group.
The hostages were knifed to death along a main highway near Idohu, in the restive Ituri province, local official Dieudonne Malangai said….
The ADF is the deadliest of the militias operating in the region.
It began as an armed Ugandan Muslim group, and has been active in mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for 30 years.
The DRC’s Catholic Church says the ADF has killed around 6,000 civilians since 2013, while a respected US-based monitor, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), blames it for more than 1,200 deaths in the Beni area alone since 2017.
