The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group to which the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) who carried out the operation.
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More than 800 prisoners escaped on the night of August 9 to 10, 2022 during the attack on the Kwakangura prison center in Butembo, in North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The attack was attributed “to ADF terrorists (Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist rebel group)“, said Captain Antony Mualushayi, army spokesman in Beni, on August 10, reports Radio Okapi. They benefited from the help of Mai-Mai fighters who are members of Congolese self-defense groups.
According to an initial assessment, two police officers lost their lives. The army specified, according to Radio Okapi, that five assailants had been killed and that 115 escapees had been caught and returned to prison.
The ADF, Ugandan Muslim rebels, are presented by the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS) as its branch in Central Africa (ISCAP, in English). The operation was also claimed on August 10 by the terrorist group, indicates the Turkish agency Anadolu.
The ADF would have come to liberate “a certain Kizito who was already known ADF” and “twelve women from the ADF”detainees about to be evacuated, said Captain Antony Mwalushayi. “Unfortunately in this operation which lasted more than fifteen minutes, we intervened late because the enemy was heavily armed and with a strength estimated at more than 80 elements”, he also explained. The ADF, which loot the region’s subsoil, are among the deadliest groups in the eastern region of the DRC, torn by violence for nearly 30 years. They saccused of being responsible for the massacres of thousands of civilians in the East.