According to a report consulted by AFP on Monday, UN experts have determined that the ADF rebels active in the east of the DRC and suspected of carrying out Friday’s attack on a high school in Uganda were receiving financial support from the Islamic State (ISIS) group and were looking to expand their area of operations.
The ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) are one of the deadliest military organisations sweeping the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and are suspected of killing thousands of people.
They formerly belonged to Ugandan rebels, the majority of whom were Muslims, who had been operating in the DRC since the 1990s. In 2019, they swore allegiance to ISIS, which takes credit for some of their deeds and refers to them as its “central African province” (ISCAP).
Yet up to this point, there was no proof of ISIS paying them.
In its latest report, due to be released this week, the UN panel of experts on the DRC says that the EI has “provided financial support to the ADF since at least 2019, through a complex financial system involving individuals in several countries on the continent, emanating from Somalia and passing through South Africa, Kenya and Uganda”.
The experts also state that the ADF have “sent fighters and/or collaborators on reconnaissance missions in an attempt to extend their area of operations beyond the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri”.
According to them, “they have sought to recruit and carry out attacks in Kinshasa” as well as in the Congolese provinces of Tshopo, Haut-Uélé (north-east) and Sud-Kivu.
Ugandan officials accuse the ADF of carrying out a raid on a Ugandan secondary school near the Congolese border on Friday night, which left at least 41 people dead.
Uganda and the DRC launched a joint offensive in 2021 to drive the ADF out of their Congolese strongholds, but have so far failed to put an end to the group’s attacks.
The UN experts also devote a large part of their study to Rwanda’s support for the M23 rebels in North Kivu, which they had already established in previous reports, although Kigali denies this.
They state that they have “obtained further evidence of direct interventions by the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) on DRC territory” and “identified several RDF commanders and officials coordinating RDF operations in the DRC”.
They note that “the security and humanitarian situation in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu has continued to deteriorate”.
