ISIS-linked group has tortured, killed and abducted civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including children.

Amnesty International has accused a rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of mass war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a damning new report published Monday, the rights group said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) was behind multiple cases of murder, abductions, forced labour and marriage, sexual abuse of women and girls, and the exploitation of children.

The report is entitled “I’d Never Seen So Many Bodies: War Crimes by the Allied Democratic Forces in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo”. 

The ADF has been involved in a years-long military campaign against central authorities in Kinshasa and pledged allegiance to ISIS/ISIL, also known as ISIS-Central Africa, in 2019.

“Civilians in the eastern DRC have suffered extensive brutality at the hands of ADF fighters. They have been killed, abducted and tortured in a dehumanising campaign of abuse,” Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said.

“The ADF’s violence is contributing to an escalating humanitarian crisis… These abuses constitute war crimes which the world must not continue to ignore.”

The ADF largely operates in eastern DRC, near the Ugandan border, and has for years been in conflict with the government’s Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), along with the UN mission MONUSCO.

Repeated ADF attacks have led to mass displacement in parts of the DRC and limited the population’s access to healthcare, food and education.

A rebellion by the Rwanda-backed March 23 Movement, better known as M23, has worsened the situation for civilians in the region, while the ADF has taken advantage of international and domestic focus on these attacks to intensify its own military operations in eastern DRC.

Amnesty interviewed 71 people, including survivors of ADF attacks, as well as humanitarian workers and police officers, as part of its research in North Kivu province, eastern DRC, where the violence is most prominent.

In one notorious attack on Ntoyo village in September 2025, ADF fighters allegedly disguised themselves as mourners and used hammers, machetes, guns and axes to kill more than 60 people at a wake.

Another attack two months later in nearby Byambwe village saw at least 17 civilians killed, with four wards at a hospital set ablaze. A survivor told Amnesty that the fighters “shot anything that moved” at the church-run medical facility.

Forced marriage, child recruitment and abductions

Amnesty also spoke to five women and two girls who had been forced into marriages with ADF fighters, with interviewees indicating that members of the group were given “wives” as an incentive to fight the government. Under threat of death, victims were made to convert to Islam and suffered sexual and physical violence, with several women forced to watch the killings of others who had refused the group’s orders.

Amnesty documented 46 cases of abduction, including hostages being held for ransom, enduring torture, sexual slavery, forced labour, or they were murdered. Some were made to carry heavy loads for days, receiving beatings and given little food during their ordeal.

“They taught us how to kill with weapons and with blades,” a woman who escaped after two years told Amnesty. “In the bush, you had to do what you were told. You cannot be weak.”

‘Stronger action to ensure protection of civilians’

Amnesty has called on authorities in the DRC to do more to protect civilians and urged the government to work with the UN and local communities to improve early warning systems and to quickly respond to any attacks.

Witnesses said that security forces sometimes arrived late at the scenes of ADF attacks or not at all. Peace and reintegration programmes were also essential to help survivors and communities to cope with their trauma.

“The Congolese government must take far stronger action to ensure the protection of civilians,” Callamard said, warning that disregarding the ADF threat would undermine security and human rights in the country.

“The international community must steadfastly support the Congolese state in improving efforts to protect civilians, ensuring justice, and providing long-term, sustainable support to victims and survivors.”

A surge in Somali piracy is fueling fears of a Red Sea “security vacuum” across the region as analysts warn of a revived maritime crime playbook, now linked to Iran-backed Houthis.

The warning follows a May 2 report from Yemen’s coast guard that armed men hijacked an oil tanker off Shabwa and steered it toward the Gulf of Aden, and the vessel has since been located with recovery efforts underway, Reuters reported.

“There is a fundamental shift in the maritime center of gravity amid a new phase of maritime instability in the region,” Ido Shalev, chief operating officer at RTCOM Defense, told Fox News Digital.

“Somali and Houthi-linked groups are teaming up — using skiffs and new tech to strike ships with coordination not seen in a decade — while Saudi crude rerouted from the Strait of Hormuz has created a ‘target-rich environment for them,’” he added.

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“There is an opportunistic alignment, with the Houthis providing geopolitical cover and advanced GPS and surveillance, and Somali groups providing the boots on the ground or skiffs on the water,” Shalev said.

With the MT Eureka taken off Shabwa, Shalev, a former Israeli naval officer, suggested what he called the “Somali model” had returned “with a vengeance.”

“This is a transactional collaboration, and in the exact area where the Houthis are active and would like to cause damage and support their IRGC sponsor,” he said before describing how pirates would hijack the entire ship and cargo, taking them to a secure anchorage “like Qandala or Garacad.”

“They then demand a ransom for the entire package: the vessel, the tens of millions of dollars in oil, and the crew,” he said.

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The surge in regional risk is also exacerbated, Shalev said, by the volatility of the Strait of Hormuz. As Iranian-backed threats persist in the Persian Gulf, global energy flows are shifting.

“Due to the closure and instability of the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of crude per day through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu,” the former Israeli naval officer said.

“This creates a target-rich environment in a sector that was previously a backbound route. With Brent Crude prices surging — peaking near $115/bbl this quarter — the prize for a successful hijacking has never been higher.”

The risk level in waters off Somalia was recently upgraded to “substantial” following a wave of hijackings and attempted attacks that began April 21, according to Windward AI and alerts from the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO).

At least three vessels were hijacked within days: a Somali-flagged fishing boat on April 21, followed by the Palau-flagged tanker Honour 25 (IMO 1099735), and, by April 26, a general cargo ship seized and redirected to Garacad.

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Shalev, who served as the lead architect for Nigeria’s “Falcon Eye” project — a surveillance system that successfully reduced piracy in those waters to 0% — warned that the distraction of global warships is being exploited.

“Because international naval forces are preoccupied with missile threats, a ‘security vacuum’ has now opened in the region, so pirates can travel vast distances in skiffs to board vulnerable commercial vessels,” he said.

“Somali piracy, which had been suppressed for years, has seen this sharp resurgence that also correlates perfectly with the Houthi crisis in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” Shalev said.

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The Red Sea carries 12% to 15% of global trade and about 30% of container traffic, moving over $1 trillion in goods annually, including oil and LNG, according to reports.

“The current crisis proves that you cannot ‘patrol’ your way out of this; you have to see the threat before it ever reaches the ship,” Shalev said.