DR Congo priest recounts massacre at parish (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))

The parochial vicar of the Congolese parish targeted in a terrorist attack discussed the massacre in an interview with the Vatican newspaper.

Father Dieudonné Liringa said that families of Catholic Action and Eucharistic Crusade members spent the night in a parish hall following a Mass marking the 25th anniversary of the Eucharistic Crusade in the parish. The attack took place during the night, as they slept.

“Our young people, our mothers, our fathers, who had come for the Jubilee, had been massacred” during the night, he said. “We went to the place where they had spent the night, about 500 meters from the church, in one of the large halls the parish uses on the main road. Then the military arrived to count the bodies.”

The priest also said that the assailants abducted some children, one of whom has escaped.