Call for international response in Congo

A priest has denounced what he describes as international indifference in the face of acts of terror sweeping parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Father Marcelo Oliveira, a Combonian missionary priest, was speaking after an attack on a church in Kasindi, a town in the region.

“Terror is widespread,” Father Oliveira told ACN. “It’s one village here today, another there tomorrow, and all this in silence.

“And this is what gets to us, as missionaries, seeing the silence of the international community, the deafening silence, while human lives are massacred.”

The comments came after attackers armed with improvised explosives struck at a packed Protestant church in Kasindi, near the border with Uganda, on January 15.

At least 15 people died and dozens were wounded after a bomb, which had been placed in the middle of the busy Sunday congregation, was detonated.

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) insurgent group claimed responsibility.