IS-linked militants kill at least 33 in eastern Congo village attack, civil society says

Associated Press — Islamic State-linked militants killed at least 33 people in an overnight attack on a village in eastern Congo, burning and looting homes, a local civil society group said Friday.

The attack on Cantine, in North Kivu province, was blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF, Justin Paluku, head of a local civil society group, told The Associated Press.

“So far, we have counted 33 bodies and more than 50 houses set on fire, along with various other forms of material destruction,” Paluku said.

The violence forced many villagers to flee to other parts of the province, where the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak in history is raging.

Among those who fled were 180 patients from the local hospital, including suspected Ebola cases and one confirmed Ebola case, Christian Kakule, medical director of the Kelekele Hospital Center in Cantine, told the AP. He said there was gunfire and homes were set ablaze as close as 50 meters (164 feet) from the hospital.

“High-risk contacts and other individuals under monitoring have all fled,” he said. “Our concern is that when probable cases end up out in the open like this, they can become a source of transmission and trigger an outbreak of the disease.”

North Kivu has emerged as one of the epicenters of a deadly Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus. The outbreak has killed more than 5,000 people, and continuing violence has hampered the response.

The ADF, which has roots in Uganda and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019, has long operated in the border region and routinely attacks civilians. In July 2025, it killed 66 people in eastern Congo in what the United Nations called a “bloodbath.”

Roughly 100 other rebel groups operate in Congo, most prominently the Rwanda-backed M23, which has seized key cities in the east.

“This represents a major security failure. Given the number of loyalist and security forces deployed in this area, it is incomprehensible how the enemy managed to bypass their defenses to kill civilians and inflict such significant material and human casualties,” Paluku said.