ICC Note: Nearly 50 Christians are dead after a second attack in the past week in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) killed between nine and 15 in Ituri Province, according to World Watch Monitor. The new site reported between 20 and 40 killed on May 3, just three days before the Ituri attack. Local witnesses believe Muslim Defense International (MDI), a regional jihadist terror group is responsible for the assaults. Reportedly, the Islamist organization has been terrorizing Christian villages in northeast DRC since 2014 and carries suspected links to the Ugandan Idi Amin regime in the late 1970s and to the Sudanese government whom reports say is secretly sponsoring them.
5/11/16 Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo (World Watch Monitor) – At least a further nine people have been killed in another attack by suspected Islamist militants in the eastern extremes of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, bringing the total killed in the past week to nearly 50.
World Watch Monitor reported last week that between 20 and 40 villagers had been killed in an attack late in the evening on 3 May in a village in North Kivu province.
Another attack late on 6 May in the province of Ituri, slightly further north, saw between nine and 15 killed, including the worship leader and deaconess of a local church. They were part of the mission organisation Eglise du Rocher, or Church on the Rock, which also lost a pastor and his wife to an attack in October 2014 in Cadeau. That church, and the school attached to it, have yet to reopen. The church has also since abandoned its mission amongst Mbuti Pygmies.
“We are heartbroken, questioning our faith, half-terrified, but determined, and carrying on,” said Mike Anticoli, the founder of Eglise du Rocher. “We are a small but growing church organisation, founded in 2005, and have 13 churches and three ministry training schools in the danger zone of North Kivu. We may be targeted due to the fact that we train local leaders and aspiring missionaries from several churches and denominations.”
…
