Deep in Congo’s forested ravines, a local affiliate of the Islamic State has grown increasingly deadly — seizing children to swell its ranks and launching ferocious attacks on villages, churches and clinics — without attracting international attention.
The ADF was founded decades ago in neighboring Uganda with the aim of overthrowing that country’s government, which eventually pushed the group’s fighters over the border into the forested mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group’s ambitions broadened after its founder was arrested in 2015 and a new leader, former religious judge Musa Baluku, took over. Desperate for funds, Baluku vowed allegiance to the Islamic State.
The ADF’s decision to affiliate with the Islamic State initially faced internal dissent. A 16-year-old girl who had spent eight years with the ADF before escaping said Mohamood had arrived in Congo with a black flag and a demand: Swear allegiance or be attacked. The ADF’s founder, Jamil Mukulu, had always opposed the Islamic State, and his son, Moses, now spoke out against joining the group.
In the town of Mukondi, the ADF killed 38 people in March, including a 2-month-old baby. A month later, militants killed at least 21 civilians in Musandaba, on the outskirts of Beni. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks. Her older brother became a fighter and was fatally shot during an attack, the girl recounted. Her younger sister was killed carrying out a food raid. And her little brother, only 2, became sick and died. The girl herself was married off to a fighter at age 13.
And escapees are sometimes rejected by their relatives and communities. Girls and women often come home pregnant or with babies fathered by their rapists to find that their husbands or families won’t take them in.
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