A rebel group's attack on a Catholic hospital's maternity ward in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed around 20 people, including breastfeeding mothers and their babies. Authorities have blamed the Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group affiliated with the Islamic State, for the massacre. 

The strike occurred Friday night in the village of Byambwe in North Kivu province's Lubero territory, where the ADF terror group targeted a health facility run by the Little Sisters of the Presentation.

Armed men moved swiftly through the village, killing patients in their beds and setting fire to the center, local administrator Col. Alain Kiwewa told The Associated Press on Saturday.

"Women who were breastfeeding were brutally slaughtered and found with their throats slit in their hospital beds," Kiwewa was quoted as saying. Of the 17 people killed, 11 were women and six were men, he said.

The same armed group also launched attacks in other nearby villages the same night, but officials said casualty figures from those areas remained unclear.

The hospital's maternity ward was among the hardest hit. Witnesses reported that several women and their newborns were burned alive.

The building was destroyed in the fire, and surrounding homes were looted and torched.

Survivors are now receiving care in the open, with the Little Sisters of the Presentation awaiting security assessments before reestablishing services, according to the Catholic news organization Aleteia.

Fr. Giovanni Piumatti, an Italian missionary who served in the Diocese of Butembo-Beni for more than 50 years, said that 15 people were killed inside the hospital and five more were murdered nearby.

The attackers, he added, were heavily armed and moved quickly through Byambwe before retreating into the forest. Houses near the clinic were burned after the assailants seized medical supplies.

Fr. Piumatti, now based in Italy, said these types of attacks occur frequently in the region and often receive little global attention.

The ADF has operated across eastern Congo for more than two decades and is known for frequent, lethal raids on schools, churches, farms and health centers. The group was formed by rebel factions in Uganda in the late 1990s and has significantly expanded its base of operations in eastern Congo. It pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2017.

ADF is the deadliest threat to civilians in the DRC and was responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in 2023, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data.

In August, ADF fighters killed at least 52 people in a series of assaults over several days, according to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo.

In July, the group attacked a Catholic church in Ituri province during a vigil, killing nearly 40 worshippers, many of them women and children.

The incident prompted Pope Leo XIV to condemn the violence at his July 30 General Audience. He offered prayers for the victims and urged world leaders to take the crisis seriously.

Local residents and religious leaders say civilians bear the brunt of the continuing instability in North Kivu and Ituri. The region is home to dozens of armed groups, including the ADF and the M23 rebels, who are believed to receive support from neighboring Rwanda. Despite diplomatic efforts, eastern Congo has seen little progress toward peace.

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