A Kenyan was arrested in connection with a bomb attack on a church in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday that left at least 10 people dead.
Kenyan officials said they had been informed the Congolese authorities are holding 29-year-old Abdirizak Muktar Garad, who hails from Wajir county.
The bomb attack took place at a church on Sunday in Kasindi near the DRC-Uganda border, in which at least 39 other people were injured.
Detectives at the Anti-Terror Police Unit in Nairobi said they were counterchecking the details of the suspect for more background.
They confirmed they had been informed of the arrest.
Local FARDC spokesman Anthony Mualushayi on Sunday said after an initial investigation at the scene of the tragedy, a Kenyan was arrested for having links to the planning of the attack now associated with the ADF.
This is the latest such incident to link a Kenyan.
In January 2022, another Kenyan, Salim Rashid Mohamed aka Chotara, was arrested in DRC following months of a manhunt by Congolese authorities in connection with terror claims.
Authorities had then claimed that a network of terrorists had been established in the DRC attracting certain people from across East Africa.
Officials said Salim and several other suspects were said to have crossed into the DRC via Uganda.
According to the FARDC, the terrorist attack on Sunday was perpetrated “in retaliation for the losses these terrorists have suffered in several battlefields against the FARDC.”
The bomb attack happened during a service at a Protestant church in the eastern DRC. Mualushay said the attack during the Sunday service in the city of Kasindi, was likely carried out by the Allied Democratic Force (ADF), a Ugandan armed group that has pledged allegiance to ISIL (ISIS).
Later on Sunday, the ISIL group claimed responsibility for the attack, the reports said.
The ADF began as an uprising in Uganda but has been based in the DRC since the late 1990s.
Survivors and witnesses said the blast severed some people’s limbs from their bodies.
Kasindi is in a province where Congolese and Ugandan forces have launched a campaign against the ADF.
Troops from Uganda’s army have been deployed to eastern Congo to try to stem the violence, but the attacks have increased and spread.
ADF attacks since April have killed at least 370 civilians and involved the abduction of several hundred more, a report by the United Nations last month said.
The rebel group has extended its area of operations to Goma and into neighbouring Ituri province where Kenyan troops are.
More than 120 armed groups roam mineral-rich eastern DRC. Many are the legacy of regional wars that flared at the turn of the century.
-Edited by SKanyara