Bomb kills 10 at DR Congo church, Islamists suspected

A group linked to Islamic extremists was suspected of being responsible for a bomb that went off in the Pentecostal church

A bomb killed at least 10 people and wounded 39 others after ripping through a church in eastern DR Congo on Sunday, in an attack blamed on suspected Islamists.

Details of the attack are hazy, but Congolese military spokesman Antony Mualushayi said the "terrorist act" happened in a Pentecostal church in North Kivu province's Kasindi, a town on the border with Uganda.

A Kenyan was arrested following the bomb blast, he added, although the perpetrator of the attack in the turbulent region remains unclear.

The explosion killed at least 10 people and wounded 39, Mualushayi said, revising up an initial death toll of five. Both tolls were provisional, he said.

Joel Kitausa, a local civil-society figure, also put the death toll at 10.

Kitausa said 58 people were wounded.

AFP was unable to independently confirm the numbers of casualties.

The DRC's communications ministry said on social media that the attack was apparently carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) --- which the Islamic State group claims as its affiliate in central Africa.

The ADF is one of the deadliest of the over 120 armed groups in eastern DRC, many of which are the legacy of regional wars that flared at the turn of the 21st century.

It has been accused of slaughtering thousands of Congolese civilians and carrying out bomb attacks in Uganda. ADF operatives have also planted bombs in towns in North Kivu in the past.

Mualushayi said investigations were ongoing into Sunday's church bombing.

In 2021, the United States labelled the ADF a "foreign terrorist organisation" with links to the Islamic State group. The militia is active mainly in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province.

The same year, a joint Congolese-Ugandan military operation began targeting the ADF inside the DRC.

But attacks have continued.

A report by independent experts for the UN Security Council, released in December, said the ADF had "continued its geographic expansion" despite the Congolese-Ugandan military operation, killing at least 370 civilians since April 2022.

It also warned that the ADF was changing tactics: opting for "more visible and more lethal" bomb attacks in urban areas.

In April last year, for example, a woman detonated a suicide vest in a bar in North Kivu's capital Goma, according to the independent UN experts. Six people died in the attack and 16 more were wounded.

Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi placed North Kivu and Ituri under a so-called state of siege in 2021 in a bid to stem the violence, with military officials replacing civilian administrators.

The measure has also largely failed to stop attacks against civilians.