At least 10 people were killed and 39 others were injured in a bombing that occurred during a Sunday service at a Protestant church in the eastern Congolese town of Kasindi, according to the Islamic State organisation.
The attack’s specifics are unclear, but Congolese military spokesman Antony Mualushayi claimed that a Pentecostal church in Kasindi, a town in North Kivu province that borders Uganda, was the scene of a “terrorist incident.” Following the bombing, a Kenyan was detained, he added.
39 people were injured and at least 10 people died in the explosion, according to Mualushayi, who revised the earlier death toll of five. Both tolls, he maintained, were temporary.
A prominent member of the community’s civil society, Joel Kitausa, said that 10 people had died and 58 others had been injured.
However, Bilal Katamba, the spokesman for Uganda’s military mission in the DRC, reported on Sunday evening that 16 people had died and 20 had been injured in the explosion.
“The attackers used an IED to carry out the attack and we suspect ADF is behind the attack,” he added.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which the Islamic State group claims to be its affiliate in central Africa, are believed to have carried out the attack, the DRC’s communications ministry claimed on social media.
Of the more than 120 armed groups operating in eastern DRC, the ADF is among the deadliest. Many of these organisations are the result of regional wars that erupted at the turn of the century.
It has been charged with carrying out bomb attacks in Uganda and killing thousands of civilians in the Congo. In the past, ADF agents have detonated bombs in North Kivu towns.