Pope Leo has come out to condemn a brutal Isis attack on a church which left 49 Christian worshippers dead.
The pontiff, alongside the UN, the US's State Department and a leading Christian group, have all reacted with fury to the mass killings - which saw militant Islamists kill dozens with knives and machetes.
Rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group allied to Isis with roots in Uganda, burst into a church in Komanda, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The congregation was attacked at 1am last Sunday morning while praying for peace in a night vigil.
Rebels were also said to have burned nearby homes to the ground and abducted locals.
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Pope Leo has come out to condemn a brutal Isis attack on a church
|REUTERS
Nine children were killed in the attack, according to local reports.
Now, the Pope has spoken out, saying: "May the blood of these martyrs become a seed of peace, reconciliation, fraternity, and love for the Congolese people."
A Vatican Cardinal added that Leo "learned with dismay and deep sorrow of the attack".
Monusco, the UN's "stabilisation mission" in the DRC, said it felt "deep outrage at these heinous acts of violence".
The killings were "serious violations of international humanitarian law and infringements on human rights", it added.
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PICTURED: Villagers bury their dead on July 28 after the 'heinous' Islamist killings
|OPEN DOORS
Illia Djadi, a senior sub-Saharan researcher for charity Open Doors which supports persecuted Christians, said: "The ADF have a very clear aim: they want to turn a large part of DRC into an Islamic caliphate, like the horrific one instigated in Iraq and Syria in 2014 by Islamic State."
He told Fox News: "The presence of Islamic State groups across the region means that sub-Saharan Africa has become the new epicentre of jihadism.
"Muslims are in the minority here; it's said that Christians account for between 80-95 per cent of the population."
Christian killings have also risen in Nigeria - and just last month, Pope Leo XIV mourned how "some 200 people were murdered with extraordinary cruelty" in the country's Benue State.
PICTURED: Locals walk towards the burial site of 49 Christians killed in the DRC
|OPEN DOORS
The US designated the ADF, also known as Isis-DRC, as a foreign terrorist organisation in 2021.
A State Department spokesman said following the news of the killings in church: "We are concerned by reports of the recent attack on civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo and strongly condemn this cowardly act of violence against Christians in their place of worship."