Congolese forces rescue at least 40 hostages abducted by Islamic State-linked extremists

Soldiers of the 214th DP Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during a joint operation patrol on the Beni-Kasindi axis, North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. File photo
| Photo Credit: AFP

Congolese forces rescued 41 hostages held by Islamic State-linked rebels after an intense battle with the extremists in the country’s hard-hit eastern region, an army spokesman has said.

The hostages, including 13 women and several foreigners, were released from the custody of the Allied Democratic Forces extremist group in North Kivu province’s Lubero and Beni territories during a joint military operation with neighbouring Ugandan troops, said Mak Hazukay, a spokesman for Congo army in the province, on Friday.

Some of the hostages looked unkept and haggard as they were freed in Beni on Friday (April 11, 2025).

It was not immediately clear for how long they had been held captive, but hostages are often held for months in the conflict-battered region.

Pepin Kavota, the Beni civil society leader, or unelected local authority, urged families to welcome the hostages and not subject them to stigmatisation. “They must be taken in as any other taken by force by the enemy,” he said.

Kavota lauded the joint military operation, which has freed hundreds of hostages in recent years, according to local media. “To the ADF fighters, they must understand that the march toward peace is underway,” he said.

The ADF extremist group is one of more than 100 armed groups that have carried out deadly violence in Congo’s mineral-rich but impoverished east for decades, resulting in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Attacks by the group have intensified over the years, mostly near Congo’s border with Uganda but also spreading toward the region’s largest city, Goma, now under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 group.