Ten Years of Terror: ADF Massacres Continue to Haunt Ngadi Village

Ten years have passed since the first massacres of civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ngadi village cast a pall over the community. The citizens’ lives are still scarred by that terrible time, and they are dominated by grief and terror. With the help of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel organization connected to an Islamist movement, terror is still rampant in this area.

Both observers and survivors still have strong memories of those gloomy times. “The roundabout was where the massacres started. They killed Commander Matatdi over there. They then murdered the wife and two children of a soldier. My son Gaizo was killed by them when they came here. “They also killed a lieutenant as they were leaving,” remembers village chief Balulu Musekuse. The trauma is as recent to Musekuse and many others as if it had occurred only yesterday.

Ebike Gérard, one of the few people who survived the 2014 tragedy, shares his story. However, the physical and psychological scars he bears bear witness to the violence of that evening. “I used to live next to eucalyptus trees. They came and shot me in the leg when I was seated. They shot me in the stomach once more after I fell. They believed me dead when I sobbed. Gérard recalls, “They left me when they saw this and went to a neighbor’s house, where they immediately killed a couple.” Residents of Ngadi are unable to get past the tragedies of the past due to the unrelenting violence, which has left them in a state of constant terror.

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