At least 64 people have been killed in a brutal attack on a Catholic parish in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Newsroom (24/09/2025, Gaudium Press ) In a horrifying escalation of sectarian violence, at least 64 people were killed in a savage nighttime assault on a Catholic parish in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as Islamist rebels continue to unleash terror on Christian communities. The attack on Saint Joseph of Manguredjipa parish in Ntoyo village, North Kivu province, occurred in the early hours of night of Sept. 8-9 2025.
The victims—many of them congregants gathered for a mourning ceremony—were set upon by members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group affiliated with the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province (IS-CAP). Eyewitness accounts describe a premeditated ambush, with assailants wielding machetes, firearms, and hammers to hack, shoot, or bludgeon their targets. Several homes were subsequently torched, displacing survivors and intensifying the humanitarian crisis. Local officials, including provincial authorities, confirmed the deliberate nature of the raid, which left the community reeling from unimaginable loss.
“This is not an isolated incident but a stark manifestation of the relentless persecution faced by our faithful in eastern DRC,” said a spokesperson for Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the international Catholic charity that swiftly condemned the atrocity. ACN expressed profound solidarity with the bereaved families and reiterated its call for urgent international intervention to curb the militants’ impunity.
Bishop Melchisédech Sikuli Paluku of the Diocese of Butembo-Beni issued a pastoral message of solace amid the grief, invoking the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “May God console these afflicted souls and lead us from the shadows of suffering to the light of enduring peace,” the bishop prayed. In the immediate aftermath, local authorities initiated mass burials and bolstered security protocols, though experts warn that the entrenched presence of militias in North and South Kivu renders such measures woefully inadequate.
The ADF’s origins trace back to a Ugandan insurgency in the 1990s, but since pledging allegiance to IS-CAP in 2019, the group has intensified its operations across porous borders, specializing in grotesque acts of violence such as beheadings, mutilations, and targeted killings of civilians—disproportionately affecting Christian populations. Gaudium Press coverage during this period underscores the grim trajectory: While this massacre stands as the deadliest single incident in recent weeks, from August 1 to September 24, 2025, a chilling pattern of smaller-scale but no less brutal assaults that have claimed dozens more lives and deepened communal fears.
For instance, on August 15, 2025, we detailed an ADF ambush on a convoy of displaced families near Erengi in North Kivu, resulting in 18 deaths, including five children, as militants opened fire on fleeing refugees. Just days later, on August 22, a raid on a makeshift chapel in Oicha killed nine worshippers during evening prayers, with survivors recounting how attackers desecrated the Eucharist before fleeing into the forest. By early September, the violence had surged: A September 7 report described the slaughter of 22 villagers in Beni territory, many hacked to death in their fields, in what local clergy described as a “calculated strike against the harvest and the faithful.” Cumulatively, at least 113 fatalities from ADF-linked incidents in North Kivu between August 1 and September 24, 2025—a 40% increase from the prior month’s toll, based on cross-referenced data from diocesan sources and ACN field reports.
This wave of atrocities echoes earlier horrors in the region. In Ituri province in June 2025, 34 worshippers were massacred during a service at a rural chapel, while a July 20 night vigil at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Komanda claimed over 40 lives in a hail of gunfire and arson. February’s discovery of more than 70 bound and decapitated bodies in a Protestant church in Lubero further illustrates the militants’ methodical savagery.
Despite deployments of Congolese armed forces (FARDC), Ugandan troops, and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), the security vacuum persists. MONUSCO’s mandate expires in December 2025, raising alarms about a potential power void that could embolden groups like the ADF, which control vast swaths of mineral-rich territory.
The Congolese Episcopal Conference has issued repeated denunciations of these “odious massacres,” framing them as assaults on religious freedom itself. ACN, in tandem with Vatican diplomats, has amplified pleas for global action: targeted sanctions on ADF financiers, bolstered peacekeeping resources, and humanitarian corridors to evacuate at-risk communities.
As the toll mounts—now exceeding 200 Christian deaths in North Kivu since July, per ACN estimates—the international community faces a moral imperative. The flames in Ntoyo are a clarion call: Without decisive intervention, eastern DRC risks descending further into a cauldron of faith-fueled genocide.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from ACN
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