What changed

B100212/2025

B100215/2025

European Parliament resolution on the targeted attacks against Christians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo –Congo: defending religious freedom and security

(2025/2612(RSP))

– having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsits ofprevious 1948resolutions andon the International Covenant on CivilDemocratic andRepublic Politicalof Rightsthe ofCongo 1966,(DRC),

– having regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in particular Article 10 thereof on freedom of thought, conscience and religion,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),

– having regard to the statements by the European External Action Service on the security and human rights situation in the DRC,

– having regard to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights,

– having regard to Rule 136(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas the DRC is experiencing an escalation of violence, particularly in the eastern regions, where armed groups such as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have targeted Christian communities;

A. whereas the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), affiliated to the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province, have been linked to an attack on the village of Mukondi, in the eastern DRC, in which, according to local authorities, at least 44 civilians were killed; whereas the group claimed 48 attacks in December 2024 alone, killing over 200 people;

B. whereas between 12 and 15 February 2025, more than 70 Christians were found dead in a Protestant church near Kazanga, North Kivu province in the DRC; whereas the victims had been beheaded by the Islamist ADF, an affiliate militia of Islamic State Central Africa Wilayat (ISCAP);

B. whereas the ADF has a long history of committing terrorist attacks in the eastern DRC; whereas the Congolese Catholic Church claims that the ADF is responsible for the deaths of around 6 000 civilians in Beni between 2013 and 2021 and more than 2 000 in Bunia in 2020 alone; whereas between January and June 2024, 639 Christians were killed in the DRC by jihadists and half of them beheaded; whereas many of these attacks directly target the Christian population of these regions; whereas Christians in particular have been deliberately targeted by various extremist or jihadist groups for many years; whereas the Catholic bishops of the DRC spoke out in an April 2021 statement about the threat of the ‘Islamization of the region [North Kivu] as a sort of deeper strategy for a long-term negative influence on the general political situation of the country’;

C. whereas according to BBC Monitoring analysis, ISCAP is now the deadliest armed group in the DRC; whereas from 1 January to 30 June 2024, Islamic State claimed responsibility for killing a total of 698 African Christians; whereas ISCAP claimed responsibility for killing 639 Christians;

C. whereas the ADF officially pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group (ISIS) on 7 November 2019; whereas the UN Group of Experts on the DRC warned in May 2024 that the armed group had established strong networks in prisons, particularly in Kinshasa where ADF detainees were active in recruiting and mobilising combatants and collaborators, using not only ideological means, but also coercion, deception, abduction and financial incentives to attract members and collaborators; whereas the ADF’s attacks need to be seen in the wider African context of a rise in the number of Islamist groups, in particular those affiliated to ISIS, in the Sahel region, the Horn of Africa, Mozambique, Nigeria and the DRC; whereas the ADF has been designated a terrorist group by Uganda and the United States;

D. whereas the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) has amplified Pope Francis’s appeals for an end to the violence and has initiated discussions between the government and rebel groups, with consultations ongoing; whereas CENCO and the Church of Christ in Congo have launched an appeal for 2025 to be a ‘Year of Peace and Good Coexistence’ to address the ongoing violence;

D. whereas the Armed Forces of the DRC have been conducting a joint military offensive, operation Shujaa, with the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces against the ADF and other insurgent forces in the eastern DRC since November 2021; whereas the conflict between the government and M23 rebels could lead to a decrease in the funds, personnel and equipment being allocated to this counter-terrorism operation;

E. whereas churches and Christian institutions have increasingly become targets of violence and persecution by terrorist groups, including the ADF, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State; whereas the ADF, originally an armed Ugandan rebel movement, has evolved into a jihadist terrorist group operating in the eastern DRC, conducting mass killings, attacking civilian populations and disrupting agricultural and economic activities; whereas despite military operations by Congolese and Ugandan forces, the ADF continues to perpetrate violence and instability in the region;

E. whereas the region has been plagued by decades of cyclical violence, causing a security and humanitarian crisis and leading to the further destabilisation of the country; whereas the conflict between the Government of the DRC, the armed rebel group M23 and other militias has already led to the forceful internal displacement of 4.6 million people in the eastern DRC; whereas the DRC also hosts over 520 000 refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring countries, while 1.1 million refugees from the DRC are being hosted in neighbouring countries of the region, more than half of them in Uganda;

F. whereas ISIS-DRC continues to pose a severe threat in the region, carrying out deadly attacks against civilians, including the January 2025 massacre in Makoko, North Kivu, and the December 2024 attack in Batangi-Mbau; whereas recent operations by Interpol and Afripol have led to the arrest of 37 suspected terrorists across East Africa, yet ISIS-DRC remains active, exploiting instability and weak governance to sustain its violent campaign;

F. whereas North Kivu is a resource-rich region, with vast supplies of critical raw materials, including cobalt, gold and tin, which are necessary for the global digital and energy transitions; whereas it is known that the ADF has been relying on, among other sources of financing, the illegal exploitation of these resources to fund their activities; whereas Christians face difficulties and violent attacks from Islamist militants, particularly in the North Kivu province;

G. whereas the appointment of a new EU Special Envoy for religious freedom by the Commission on 7 December 2022 followed a three-year standstill, during which the former Special Envoy who had been appointed in 2021 returned his mandate after a few months to assume another position in a national government;

G. whereas the DRC is ranked 35th in the World Watch List and has even risen six places in recent years, with 2024 seeing an escalation in attacks against Christians by the ADF;

H. whereas in 2016 the Hungarian Government set up a special department for persecuted Christians around the world; whereas the State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians supports, through its ‘Hungary Helps’ programme, faith-based initiatives in more than 50 countries, with hundreds of humanitarian and development projects; whereas in 2019 the Italian Government established a fund for persecuted Christian communities; whereas in May 2022 the Italian Government led by Mario Draghi appointed a special envoy for the protection of religious freedom and interreligious dialogue; whereas in 2023 the Italian Government led by Giorgia Meloni appointed a special envoy attached to the foreign ministry to protect Christian communities around the world;

H. whereas owing to the absence of specific laws to protect Christians, Christian women and girls are especially vulnerable to domestic violence, forced marriages, abduction, rape, trafficking and sexual slavery;

I. whereas over the past decade, the EU has provided significant financial assistance to the DRC, including over EUR 272 million in humanitarian aid between 2023 and 2025 to address urgent needs such as shelter, clean water, food and education for vulnerable populations; whereas the EU allocated EUR 584 million through the European Development Fund for the period 2008-2013 to support stability and development projects; whereas the EU has also been involved in security and peacekeeping efforts, deploying missions such as the EU Security Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (EUSEC) and the EU Police Mission for the DRC (EUPOL RD Congo) to assist in rebuilding the Congolese security forces;

1. Condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist attacks and targeted massacre of Christians carried out by the ADF in the eastern DRC; expresses its solidarity with the families of the victims and with Christian communities;

J. whereas the DRC has consistently ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world, scoring 20 out of 100 in the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International and ranking 162nd out of 180 countries; whereas a conservative estimate of 30 % of the approximately EUR 1.2 billion in aid funded with EU taxpayers’ money, provided between 2008 and 2024, suggests that at least EUR 360 million may have been misappropriated by corrupt officials, seriously undermining efforts to enhance governance, stability, safety and living conditions in the DRC;

2. Strongly condemns the ADF and other rebel groups, such as M23, and their egregious human rights abuses, which amount to crimes against humanity in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC); is extremely concerned about this terrorist group’s deliberate targeting of Christians; underlines the fact that there must be no impunity for the perpetrators of these acts and that those responsible should be referred to the ICC; encourages the establishment of an international commission of inquiry to examine the human rights violations committed in the DRC, renewed investigations in North Kivu by the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor and the creation of a special tribunal for atrocity crimes in the DRC, including crimes committed against Christian communities; backs the efforts of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo and the Church of Christ in Congo, which launched the ‘Social pact for peace and coexistence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes Region’ with the aim of restoring peace in the country’s eastern provinces;

K. whereas the EU and Rwanda signed a memorandum of understanding on sustainable raw materials value chains in February 2024, granting the EU access to sources of raw materials and rare earth elements in Rwanda; whereas several UN reports state that Rwanda supports the M23 group as a means of extracting and exporting minerals from the DRC; whereas the US Embassy in the DRC confirmed that Congolese minerals are being transported, with the support of armed groups, to Rwanda, where they are subsequently sold to international buyers;

3. Supports the international efforts against the ADF, including the Shujaa counter-terrorism operation carried out jointly by DRC and Ugandan armed forces; encourages the EU Member States to consider ways of contributing to these efforts, including increased efforts to trace and interdict ISIS secret funds held overseas and to trace any raw materials stemming from their illegal exploitation by the ADF; calls for the EU to support the necessary capacity building and expertise to combat ADF ideology and rhetoric, particularly within the Muslim communities of both Uganda and Congo, to prevent recruitment among those communities; requests the application of the EU global human rights sanctions regime to those responsible for planning, ordering or participating in the killing of Christians in the DRC;

L. whereas this conflict has been overshadowed by global attention focused on crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, despite over 10 million lives lost in years of violence and an estimated 3 000 people killed in just a few days;

4. Reiterates its full support for the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) in protecting civilians and stabilising the region; urges the EU to cooperate with all actors on the ground, in particular MONUSCO, to ensure the protection of civilians in the eastern DRC; calls on the UN to work towards a stronger mandate for MONUSCO in order to enable peacemaking; calls on the UN to ensure the protection of civilians and respect for international humanitarian law;

1. Strongly condemns the murder of Christians in the DRC, and all acts of violence targeting them, and expresses its solidarity with the victims;

5. Confirms its commitment to freedom of thought, conscience and religion as a fundamental human right guaranteed by international legal instruments to which most of the world’s countries have committed, and as a right that is recognised as having universal value and is enshrined in the Congolese constitution;

2. Notes that the DRC ranks 35th on the Open Doors’ World Watch List 2025 of countries where Christians are persecuted because of their faith; emphasises that Christians face severe persecution and violence especially from Islamist groups; emphasises that the ADF abduct and kill Christians and attack churches, leading to terror, insecurity and population displacement; emphasises that the M23 group also targets Christian civilians; is concerned about the involvement of the M23 group in the widespread violence in the DRC; takes note of the EU sanctions against people holding leading positions in the Rwanda Defence Force and M23; demands that the Rwandan Government withdraw its troops from the DRC and cease its cooperation with M23; notes that the DRC ranks fourth on Global Christian Relief’s Red List of countries where Christians have been forced to flee their homes due to violence;

6. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Government and Parliament of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the African Union, the secretariats of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community, and other relevant international bodies.

3. Is worried about the growing threat posed by ISCAP in Central Africa; notes that the increasing number of violent attacks demonstrates both ISCAP’s willingness and operational capability to intensify its campaign of terror and violent attacks against Christians; is worried that the expansion of Islamic State in Central Africa poses a danger to the security of the whole continent;

4. Is of the opinion that by stalling the process of mandating an EU Special Envoy for religious freedom for almost three years, the Commission signalled to the outside world that the issue of the persecution of Christians worldwide is not one of the EU’s priorities; notes that this reflects its policy in the EU, only appointing a coordinator for combating Muslim hatred, and neglecting the rising violence against Christians in the EU; finds this lack of commitment highly regrettable and problematic in the light of the rising violence against Christians worldwide; is of the opinion that the significant delay in appointing the EU Special Envoy for religious freedom undermines the credibility of the EU’s commitment to protecting religious freedom and belief beyond its borders;

5. Welcomes the ‘Hungary Helps’ programme, which helps Christian communities rebuild after persecution and manages projects, reconstructing institutions and improving education and healthcare after violent persecution by Islamic terrorist groups; emphasises that the Hungarian initiative, enabling people to build their future in their own country, is also an important migration prevention policy; welcomes the fact that the ‘Hungary Helps’ programme and the Reformed Church of Hungary will give donations to help the victims of the Islamist terrorist attacks on Christians in the DRC; welcomes the cooperation between the Hungarian and Italian Governments to undertake joint initiatives in Africa, with a focus on supporting persecuted Christians; hopes that Hungarian and Italian policy will inspire other Member States to follow suit;

6. Calls for the EU and the EU Special Envoy for religious freedom to take all the necessary diplomatic and political initiatives to protect Christians in the DRC;

7. Calls on the DRC and its authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the murders and to ensure that the criminals responsible are brought to justice;

8. Calls on the DRC and its authorities to take immediate and effective action to protect Christian communities and all religious minorities from further violence and persecution;

9. Calls on the DRC and its authorities to provide financial and logistical support for local and international humanitarian organisations assisting the victims of religious persecution in the DRC;

10. Welcomes the efforts of religious leaders to foster peace and dialogue and urges all parties involved to seek constructive solutions rather than resorting to violence;

11. Encourages regional and international African bodies such as the African Union and the East African Community to take the lead in addressing the conflict, as they are the best suited for this task; encourages these African bodies to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation, intelligence-sharing and military coordination against extremist groups operating in the region;

12. Calls strongly for the EU to work with regional and international actors to protect civilians and Christian communities and bring the perpetrators of these criminal acts to justice;

13. Emphasises the need to address these crimes at the African Union level;

14. Calls on the Commission to suspend the implementation of the memorandum of understanding on sustainable raw materials value chains signed with Rwanda in February 2024, in the light of credible reports linking Rwanda to the illicit exploitation and export of minerals from the eastern DRC, including through its support for the M23 armed group; stresses that the continuation of this agreement risks fuelling the ongoing conflict, undermining regional stability and leading to the further killing of Christians in the region;

15. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the EU Special Envoy for religious freedom, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the Special Rapporteur on Torture, Degrading and Inhuman Treatment, the African Union Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, the Government and Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the African Union and the East African Community.