Attack
2023 massacre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
On the night of October 23, 2023, militants from the Islamic State – Central Africa Province (ISCAP) attacked the outskirts of the town of Oicha, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 26 civilians and injuring 60 more.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “October 2023 Oicha massacre”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
On the night of October 23, 2023, militants from the Islamic State – Central Africa Province (ISCAP) attacked the outskirts of the town of Oicha, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 26 civilians and injuring 60 more.
Oicha and surrounding villages have been a hub of activity of the Ugandan militant group Allied Democratic Forces, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2017 to become the Islamic State - Central Africa Province (ISCAP). The group has routinely massacred civilians, usually Christians, in massacres around the town and on its outskirts, as in the January 2020 Oicha massacres. Prior to the massacre, Congolese forces had bombed ISCAP camps in the Tingwe forest outside Oicha.
The Congolese army had received information on October 23 about ISCAP seeking to conduct a reprisal attack inside Oicha for the bombing, and Congolese officers even met in Oicha hours before the massacre discussing this possibility. According to Operation Sukola I spokesman Anthony Mwalushayi, "as [unit commanders] were speaking, the enemy already had vehicles in the town of Oicha thanks to their collaborators who were already in the town."
At about 11pm on the night of October 23, three groups of ISCAP militants entered the Masosi neighborhood on the outskirts of Oicha. The militants began slaughtering civilians with machetes instead of guns so as to not arouse the army. The first group of militants was dispatched to prevent military intervention in the massacre, the second to loot civilian stores, and the third to kill civilians. At least 26 people were killed in the massacre, including twelve children, and another sixty were injured. Several homes of entire families were wiped out by the jihadists. The Congolese army did end up responding to the attack, but Mwalushayi said that it was too late.
The following day, protests broke out in Oicha as the bodies of the victims were being taken to the town's morgue. Four vehicles at a World Food Programme food distribution event were burned by the protesters.
Text from the Wikipedia article “October 2023 Oicha massacre”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.