Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – The Catholic parish church of Bulé, the capital of Bahema Badjere in Ituri Province in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, was desacrated and looted. During the night between Sunday, February 15th and Monday, 16 unknown perpetrators smashed the church's window frames, opened the tabernacle, and threw the consecrated hosts to the ground. They then stole the sound system and ransacked the rectory. The attack, whose perpetrators remain unknown, occurred during a period of heightened tensions. Just recently, clashes broke out between the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and rebels belonging to the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CRP).
According to the army, which has since announced the recapture of Bulé, several rebels were killed. Last year, the CRP emerged as a new armed group among the broad spectrum of armed groups in Ituri. The CRP's formation was announced on March 25, 2025, at a press conference in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, by Thomas Lubanga, a former warlord from the region. Lubanga had been sentenced to 14 years in prison by the International Criminal Court (ICC) before being released in 2020. Lubanga leveraged his ethnic background to recruit former members of the Zaire and MAPI militias, which were primarily composed of young men from the Hema ethnic group. Both militias had signed a peace agreement with the Congolese government to participate in the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration process. Disillusioned by their failure to reintegrate into civilian life, many of them decided to join the new armed group, which, according to the government in Kinshasa, is allied with the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 18/2/2026)
