Fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed at least 43 civilians in a brutal overnight raid on the village of Bafwakoa in Mambasa territory, Ituri province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, hacking victims with machetes and burning others alive inside their homes as 44 houses were set ablaze.
The attack began at approximately 7 p.m., when ADF militants descended on the village and immediately torched residential structures. At least 30 people were killed with machetes, while others perished in the flames. Two residents were taken hostage, and several more remain missing. Search operations were still under way as of Thursday, when the death toll was formally announced, meaning the final figure could rise further.
Lieutenant Jules Tshikudi Ngongo, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Ituri, confirmed the casualty figures and described the group’s characteristic tactics. The ADF deliberately avoids direct confrontation with the military and its partners, instead targeting unprotected civilian communities to maximise terror and casualties.
Samuel Banapia, a civil society representative in the area, corroborated the timeline of the assault and placed the initial death toll at approximately 32, a figure that climbed as bodies were recovered. Baptiste Munyapandi, the territorial administrator of Mambasa, and local customary official Christian Alimasi were among those monitoring the situation on the ground.
The ADF is a Ugandan-origin rebel group that has operated across the porous border between Uganda and the DRC since the late 1990s. In 2019, the group formally pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIL/Daesh), transforming what had been a regional insurgency into a franchise of global jihadist terror. The group now operates on both sides of the Uganda-DRC border and has expanded its reach toward North Kivu province and the regional hub of Goma.
The scale of the ADF’s violence against civilians is staggering. Data compiled by Insecurity Insight, a research organisation that analyses verified incidents of violence affecting civilian populations, shows the ADF was responsible for roughly a quarter of all reported violence against civilians in eastern DRC between 2020 and 2025. Last year alone, the group killed 66 people and abducted several others in a neighbouring area. A separate attack on the village of Mambimbi-Isigo over a recent weekend left at least 20 more dead.
Joint military operations between Congolese and Ugandan forces, launched in 2021, have failed to neutralise the group. The precise number of ADF fighters active in Congo remains unclear, but the organisation maintains a significant and lethal presence across Ituri and North Kivu. Attacks on civilian communities have intensified in recent months, with the group demonstrating a consistent pattern of striking villages near the Ugandan border before withdrawing before any military response can be mounted.
The massacre in Bafwakoa is the latest atrocity in a region already convulsed by overlapping conflicts. Eastern DRC is simultaneously contending with the advance of M23, a separate rebel movement backed by Rwanda, which seized Goma — the largest city in eastern Congo — last year, along with several other major urban centres. The Congolese army is stretched across multiple fronts, fighting both M23 in the south and the ADF in the north and east.
The compounding pressures of jihadist insurgency and a Rwandan-backed territorial rebellion have left millions of civilians in eastern DRC exposed to violence with little protection. International attention has largely focused on the M23 conflict, but the ADF’s relentless campaign of massacres, abductions, and arson continues to devastate communities in Ituri and North Kivu, where the group has become one of the deadliest non-state actors on the continent.
