AFRICA/DR CONGO - Satisfaction with the qualification of a global terrorist group affiliated with the alleged "Islamic State" to the ADF/MTM on the part of the US State Department

Friday, 12 March 2021 terrorism   massacres  

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "We have learned with great interest of the decision of the State Department of the United States of America formally designating the ADF/MTM movements of the DRC and Ansar al-Sunna of Mozambique as" Global Terrorists affiliated with the alleged "Islamic State", affirms CEPADHO (Center for Studies for Peace, Democracy and Fundamental Rights), an NGO based in Goma, the capital of North Kivu which, for years has been reporting and denouncing violence in the country against civilians perpetrated by the various armed groups operating in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including the ADF/MTM (Allied Democratic Forces / The City of Monotheism and Monotheists), a group of Ugandan origin which, over the years years, have affiliated with the so-called "Islamic State".
On March 10, the US State Department designated the so-called "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - Democratic Republic of the Congo and the so-called" Islamic State of Iraq and Syria - Mozambique as foreign terrorist organizations, which involves freezing the assets of interested parties in the United States and sanctions by the latter against foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct or facilitate significant transactions on behalf of these groups or individuals.
According to CEPADHO, the US decision to sanction the ADF/MTM "crowns the efforts made by our NGO, which warns daily about the terrorist actions that the DRC is facing in Beni".
"Our Organization also welcomes the sanctions adopted against the aforementioned movements as well as their leaders, namely Seka Musa Baluk of the ADF/MTM and Abu Yasir Hassan of Ansar-Al Sunna", continues the statement sent to Agenzia Fides .
Furthermore, CEPADHO calls on the Congolese government to accept the new designation of the ADF/MTM and the sanctions adopted against them by the USA, mobilizing the entire population, all institutions and friendly States in the fight against what from now on should be called "Daech-DRC" or "ISCAP" (Islamic State / Central African Province). It also urges the President of the Republic to declare a state of siege in the territory occupied by Daech-DRC "so that robust means are granted and adapted to the size of the enemy".
Previously, CEPADHO denounced the fact that over the past two weeks, 55 civilians had been killed in attacks attributed to the ADF/MTM.
Missionary sources reaffirm to Fides that although the ADF/MTM threat is real, the situation in the east of the DRC is very complex, and it is not always easy to identify with reasonable certainty the perpetrators of the massacres. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 12/3/2021)


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