{"id":20787,"date":"2026-05-05T15:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=20787"},"modified":"2026-05-05T15:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:07:24","slug":"amnesty-accuses-adf-fighters-of-war-crimes-in-eastern-dr-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/20787\/amnesty-accuses-adf-fighters-of-war-crimes-in-eastern-dr-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty accuses ADF fighters of war crimes in eastern DR Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused militants in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo\u00a0linked to the Islamic State (IS) group\u00a0of\u00a0“rampant”<\/em>\u00a0war crimes and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group set up by former Ugandan rebels who have since pledged allegiance to IS, is one of the many militias that have terrorised the mineral-rich Congolese east for three decades.<\/p>\n

Renowned for their extreme cruelty towards civilians, ADF militants are at large across the provinces of North Kivu in the east and Ituri in the northeast, near the borders with Uganda and Rwanda.<\/p>\n

In a report, Amnesty accused the group of kidnappings, keeping forced labourers, recruiting child soldiers and\u00a0“crimes against women and girls, including forced marriage, forced pregnancy and various other forms of sexual violence.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“These abuses constitute war crimes which the world must not continue to ignore. As part of widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, they also amount to crimes against humanity,”<\/em>\u00a0the rights group’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard said.<\/p>\n

Basing its findings on the testimonies of 71 people collected between October and February, Amnesty said that the ADF attacked civilians to steal vital supplies, including food and medicines, as well as\u00a0“in retaliation for military operations.”<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the rights group, the ADF uses the women it kidnaps \u2014 who are then forcibly converted to Islam and handed to its militants as sex slaves \u2014 as a way to attract more fighters to its cause.<\/p>\n

Seven former hostages abducted last year told Amnesty that their families had to pay ransoms ranging from $100 to $10,000 to buy back their liberty.<\/p>\n

And the rights group named the ADF as among the biggest recruiters of child soldiers in the DRC, a country where the use of minors in wartime is widespread.<\/p>\n

While\u00a0the Ugandan army has been deployed in North Kivu and Ituri\u00a0since 2021 to help the Congolese military fight the ADF, their joint efforts have so far failed to\u00a0put a stop to the violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused militants in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo\u00a0linked to the Islamic State (IS) group\u00a0of\u00a0“rampant”\u00a0war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group set up by former Ugandan rebels who have since pledged allegiance to IS, is one of the many militias that have terrorised the mineral-rich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9634,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AFP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,2362,1129],"tags":[1271,1885,3016,140],"class_list":["post-20787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-allied-democratic-forces-adf","tag-amnesty-international","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-rwanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20788,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787\/revisions\/20788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}