ADF Releases 38 Hostages Amid Pressure from DR Congo Army

Islamist group the Allied Democratic Forces has released 38 civilian hostages after a joint military offensive by MONUSCO and DR Congo army FARDC in which 2 civilians and one FARDC soldier died.

In a statement released Monday FARDC said the hostages including men, women and children are in the hands of the army.

“As a result of pressure from FARDC –MONUSCO joint operation, the ADF released 38 civilian hostages. They include 17 men, 15 women, 5 young boys and a baby,” reads part of the statement by the FARDC.

“They were taken in by the MONUSCO then handed over to the FARDC.”

Last year in October, DR Congo army launched an offensive to uproot all rebel and militia groups operating in Eastern Congo since then more than 300 civilians have been killed in what is seen as retaliatory attacks, according to local NGO the Study Centre for the Promotion of Peace, Democracy and Human Rights.

In January alone, 36 civilians were killed in an attack in Oicha, also in Beni, in what activists say was part of the militia group’s revenge attacks on civilians for the army campaign.

The ADF, blamed for the deaths of more than a thousand civilians in Beni since October 2014, began as a rebel group in Uganda that opposed Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

It fell back into eastern DRC in 1995 during the Congo Wars and appears to have halted raids inside Uganda. Its recruits today are people of various nationalities.