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A group of NGOs has urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to allow Congolese citizens to remain in the United States on work permits, as they face the possibility of severe persecution by Islamic extremist groups in their home country.
The groups have written to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorcas, asking him to consider granting temporary protected status to citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.S.-based international Christian Cares organization Announce Saturday.
The TPS mechanism applies to foreigners from more than a dozen countries based on unsafe conditions if they are to return to the country. Countries currently granted TPS status include Afghanistan, Cameroon, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.
However, the International Criminal Court has warned that Christians in eastern DRC are being persecuted by extremist groups such as the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamic extremist group mainly active in eastern North Kivu province, which borders Uganda.
“While the Congolese government is fighting back against these terrorist groups, insufficient attention has been paid to Christian communities, which are being targeted because of their different religious affiliations,” the ICC said in a press release.
“The ICC has witnessed violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an example of which is the still smoking wreckage of a car attacked by terrorists in June this year. Just days later, an Islamic extremist group ambushed them, causing at least 10 Christians were killed. There were three vehicles near the village of Makisabo in Beni. The Islamic extremist group, Allied Democratic Forces, allegedly blocked the road, shot all passengers and set the vehicles on fire.
The ICC noted that U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called religious freedom “a critical foreign policy priority” at an event in June. Blinken visited the Democratic Republic of Congo in August to participate in a conference to discuss human rights issues in the country, among other things.
Most of the persecution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo takes the form of violent attacks, according to Open Doors USA, a global persecution watchdog group.
“In an area in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, only four of the 24 evangelical churches that were once active remain,” Open Doors noted.
ADF, a militia of Rwandan, Ugandan, Burundian and Congolese dissidents, began operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1990s and continued to operate from January 2021 to January 2022, according to a United Nations report. About 1,300 people died during the period.
In June, the militia Kill at least 18 civilians and burned down many houses in the village of Otomabere in the Irum district of Ituri province.
In January 2021, the Australian Defence Force killed more than 100 people in three major attacks in the same province, open doors report. About 46 Pygmies were killed by suspected militants in Ituri province.
In early January 2021, some 22 civilians were killed by gun- and machete-wielding militants in an overnight attack on the village of Mwenda in the Beni region of neighbouring North Kivu province.
In 2020, the United Nations report The “widespread, systematic and extremely brutal” human rights abuses by the Islamic militant group “may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes by their nature and scope”.
While the militant group has not formally linked itself to the Islamic State terror group, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for some of their attacks, calling Congo the “Central African province” of the “caliphate”.
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