Originally published in Worthy News
Islamic “terrorist groups” have stepped up “their rampage of death and destruction” across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over the past year while “increasingly targeting children” from Christian communities “to use them as weapons for war and abuse”, according to new findings by a Christian advocacy group.
International Christian Concern (ICC) said that “of the militias, perhaps the most well-established are the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamic-affiliated group, and M23, a rebel force motivated by political domination. They are notorious for kidnapping children from their villages and using them as child soldiers, labourers, and sexual slaves”.
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They are among groups “numbering in the dozens” that have battled for decades to gain control of parts of the DRC, the ICC noted.
After children are abducted, they are taken to militia base camps, according to sources familiar with the situation. “Some children are trained to fight and kill for the groups, while others are forced to endure grueling physical labour,” ICC said. “Many of the girls are repeatedly raped and forced into marrying militia fighters. All the children caught by the ADF are forced to accept Islam or be killed.”
ICC said militias build their ranks by forcing abducted children to learn how to use weapons, steal, and even kill on behalf of their captors. Those who refuse are often beaten or murdered.
Children with trauma
When children manage to escape, advocacy groups say many carry deep trauma, guilt, and shame over crimes they were forced to commit, requiring years of psychiatric and medical support.
The ADF, in particular, routinely targets children from Christian communities in an attempt to instill fear and weaken the Christian population in eastern DRC, according to ICC researchers.
One child survivor described his ordeal, saying militants killed his mother and kidnapped him and his sister. “They would send me to kill people on my own, and when I refused, I was whipped all over my body,” the boy recalled on French broadcaster France 24.
Another survivor said the ADF demands conversion to Islam. “They want everyone to learn Islam…there are those who refuse, and they get killed,” he said.
Esther, an 11-year-old girl abducted in 2024, described repeated sexual assaults by her captors. “I was raped by four men successively,” she said, adding she feared permanent physical damage without treatment.
‘A systemic crisis’
A spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned that children are enduring horrific sexual violence in the DRC. “During the most intense phase of conflict in eastern DRC, a child was raped every 30 minutes,” the spokesman, James Elder, said. He called it “a systemic crisis” and “a weapon of war.”
Reuters has also reported specific cases, including a 10-year-old girl raped by M23 fighters and a 17-year-old who said she was gang raped during the battle for Goma.
Denis Mukwege, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning gynaecologist known for treating rape victims, told Reuters news agency that DRC is facing an unprecedented nightmare. “Today, our children are being massacred, our women are being killed, raped, or raped and then killed,” he said.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is ranked 41st on the latest Open Doors World Watch List of countries where Christians face persecution.
Open Doors, a Christian advocacy group, says believers are especially vulnerable in the east due to Islamist-linked attacks by the ADF, ongoing lawlessness, and weak government protection.
ICC said it is assisting orphanages caring for children whose Christian parents were killed by militants, including a home in Butembo sheltering more than 70 child victims.
‘Children face horrors’
Caretaker Mbambu Dorcas said the support offers hope. “These children have been through horrors no child should ever face, but here, they are slowly healing, laughing again, and dreaming,” she explained.
ICC is also helping rebuild an orphanage damaged by fire that housed children rescued after their parents were killed by Islamic militants.
“We have seen the hand of God in this work,” one caretaker wrote, “and we are determined to continue rescuing orphans of war.”
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