ISIS claims credit for attacks on Congolese Catholic church

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility for an attack on a Catholic Church in eastern Congo over the weekend that also saw hostage taking.

The terrorist group estimated it had killed 45 people in the Ituri province via a post on its Telegram instant messaging channel, Al Jazeera reported.

“The bodies of the victims are still at the scene of the tragedy, and volunteers are preparing how to bury them in a mass grave that we are preparing in a compound of the Catholic church,” community leader Dieudonne Duranthabo told the Associated Press.

Social media photos show 30 wooden coffins being buried together in a mass grave, while videos show mourners preparing the victims for burial.

Pope Leo XIV called the victims martyrs and expressed “sorrow and spiritual closeness” for those affected by the tragedy, according to the Vatican News Service.

“May the blood of these martyrs become a seed of peace, reconciliation, fraternity, and love for the Congolese people,” the pope said.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission there reported the dead included 19 women and nine children, according to Reuters.

“Last night …we heard gunfire near the parish church … so far we have seen 35 bodies,” Dieudonne Katanabo, an Umoja neighborhood elder, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A local priest later confirmed the kidnappings.

“Some young people were kidnapped; we have no news of them,” Father Aime Lokana Dhego, parish priest of the Blessed Anuarite parish, told AFP.

The ISIS terror network in Congo and Uganda has long used kidnapping to force children to become soldiers in their ranks, or to be ransomed to support the group’s finances.

The local terrorist group, known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), also sacked homes and nearby shops after attacking the church housing Christian refugees and a night vigil, Reuters said.

In June, the church requested the government step up security in anticipation of violence. But in a long-repeated pattern for the region, Congolese government and U.N. peacekeeping forces only arrived later to count the dead, reported the New York Times.

Using tactics similar to other Muslim terror groups in Africa, the ADF attacked the church with guns and machetes at about 1 a.m.

The government said it “remains in solidarity with all the bereaved families.”

“It stands alongside the authorities of Ituri Province as they manage the consequences of this unacceptable tragedy,” Minister of Communications Patrick Muyaya said in a social media post. “Our determination to combat terrorism in all its forms remains unchanged.”

But locals criticized the government for failing to provide sufficient security.

“We’re truly in shock. Children and women have been killed,” one local woman at the funeral told AFP. “What are the security services doing in Komanda? They’re not doing their job. They’re not doing anything at all.”

Previously, the Congolese government and the Rwandan government agreed to a U.S.-brokered peace agreement authorities hope will quell the violence of the largest rebel faction in Congo, known as M23.

If that accord holds, it may allow the Congolese government to shift resources from the areas bordering Rwanda to the areas bordering Uganda, where the ISIS-backed terror group operates.

Currently about 10,000 to 12,000 Congolese troops in addition to U.N. peacekeepers are occupying the area along the Rwandan border, as opposed to about 2,000-5,000 Congolese troops engaged in security operations in Ituri.

A June 2025 report from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) noted the ADF is increasingly avoiding conflict with Congolese troops and attacking civilians.

“ACLED records at least 450 fatalities by the ADF in the first quarter of 2025, exclusively among unarmed civilians, including the abduction and mass killing of 70 people at a church in the Lubero territory on 11 February,” said the report.

In Feb. 2025, 70 bodies of decapitated victims were found in a Protestant church in an attack missionary groups claimed was the work of the ADF.

The most recent massacre follows an earlier assault where 66 were killed by the ADF at the beginning of July.

The Lion has reported on similar attacks on Christians by Islamic terrorist groups in Nigeria.