At least 60 people were killed after militants linked to the Islamic State infiltrated a Christian wake in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo before launching a mass attack, a report from Amnesty International has revealed.
The attack took place in September 2025 in the village of Ntoyo in North Kivu province. Fighters from the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces, known as the ADF, reportedly disguised themselves as civilians and mixed with mourners before beginning the assault. Witnesses told Amnesty researchers that militants opened fire and attacked victims with axes and machetes.
One witness said he watched fighters kill his sister with an axe. Another said militants broke into her home and abducted her four daughters. A third woman said she found her parents dead the next morning, with her father shot and her mother struck with a hammer. “I’d never seen so many bodies,” she told Amnesty International.
The Ntoyo killings were one of several attacks attributed to the ADF in 2025. Amnesty said the group has carried out killings, kidnappings, torture, and arson across parts of eastern Congo, with many of its victims being Congolese Christians.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, said: “Civilians in the eastern DRC have suffered extensive brutality at the hands of ADF fighters. They have been killed, abducted and tortured in a dehumanising campaign of abuse.”
In July 2025, ADF fighters killed eight people during a raid in Otmaber in Ituri territory. A woman who survived said militants shot her, her husband, and their seven-year-old son before burning homes.
She said: “After shooting us, they went and proceeded to burning houses… [My son and] I crawled slowly into a house that wasn’t burned and spent the night there." She added, “Even in the morning, [the military] didn’t come. Everyone had to take care of themselves.” In November 2025, the group also attacked a health center in the village of Byambwe, killing at least 17 civilians and setting four wards on fire.
One survivor said, “You couldn’t stand, they shot at anything that moved.” Rawya Rageh, Amnesty’s crisis response researcher and author of the report, told The Telegraph: “The ADF has been operating in eastern Congo for years now and has been waging really horrific attacks on the civilian population.”
She added: “The vast majority of the ADF’s victims have been Christians, given the demographic composition in the area of its operations.” The ADF originated in Uganda in the 1990s before relocating to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it later pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2018.
The attack took place in September 2025 in the village of Ntoyo in North Kivu province. Fighters from the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces, known as the ADF, reportedly disguised themselves as civilians and mixed with mourners before beginning the assault. Witnesses told Amnesty researchers that militants opened fire and attacked victims with axes and machetes.
One witness said he watched fighters kill his sister with an axe. Another said militants broke into her home and abducted her four daughters. A third woman said she found her parents dead the next morning, with her father shot and her mother struck with a hammer. “I’d never seen so many bodies,” she told Amnesty International.
The Ntoyo killings were one of several attacks attributed to the ADF in 2025. Amnesty said the group has carried out killings, kidnappings, torture, and arson across parts of eastern Congo, with many of its victims being Congolese Christians.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary general, said: “Civilians in the eastern DRC have suffered extensive brutality at the hands of ADF fighters. They have been killed, abducted and tortured in a dehumanising campaign of abuse.”
In July 2025, ADF fighters killed eight people during a raid in Otmaber in Ituri territory. A woman who survived said militants shot her, her husband, and their seven-year-old son before burning homes.
She said: “After shooting us, they went and proceeded to burning houses… [My son and] I crawled slowly into a house that wasn’t burned and spent the night there." She added, “Even in the morning, [the military] didn’t come. Everyone had to take care of themselves.” In November 2025, the group also attacked a health center in the village of Byambwe, killing at least 17 civilians and setting four wards on fire.
One survivor said, “You couldn’t stand, they shot at anything that moved.” Rawya Rageh, Amnesty’s crisis response researcher and author of the report, told The Telegraph: “The ADF has been operating in eastern Congo for years now and has been waging really horrific attacks on the civilian population.”
She added: “The vast majority of the ADF’s victims have been Christians, given the demographic composition in the area of its operations.” The ADF originated in Uganda in the 1990s before relocating to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it later pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2018.
