In the Ugandan refugee camp where he has been sleeping for three months, Jean (names have been changed), a 42-year-old father, is worried. Since fleeing his native region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his daughter, Elise, has been behaving strangely. “The camp teachers told me that she doesn’t play with others, and I also notice that she withdraws into herself,” said Jean. For Jean, it’s no mystery: at just 3 years old, “Elise heard gunshots and saw corpses in the streets. When the ADF came to our house, they caused so many casualties that it could take half a day to collect the bodies,” he sighed wearily.
Elise was born in the Beni territory, in the far north of North Kivu. The province is known for being torn apart by the conflict between the Congolese Armed Forces and the M23 rebel group. However, the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to no fewer than 266 armed groups, according to a census conducted by authorities in 2023. And in Beni, a city under government control, it is mainly the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) who kill, pillage, and loot. Since the beginning of the year, these fighters, who are estimated to number between 1500 and 2000 according to a report by the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), have caused more than 100 deaths, after causing at least three times as many in 2025.
A “opportunistic” jihadism
Formed in 1995, the ADF have been.
/2026/04/21/69e7725a3da05683164302.jpg "The government is considering 6 billion euros in savings to compensate for the cost of the war in the Middle East")
