Fighting causes at least 50 casualties in eastern Congo, says governor

At least 50 people have been killed in violence in Ituri, an unstable province in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Governor Jean Bamanisa Saidi said Thursday.

"Before yesterday, we had a figure of about 50 (dead), but that is true, we are aware that there are other cases," he said. at AFP.

According to other sources, the balance sheet could be 60 or more than 70.

Fighting began on Friday and intensified on Monday, affecting Djugu territory north of Bunia, the provincial capital, and causing many to flee their homes, sources said.

The cause of this outbreak was unclear, but it occurred in an area where tens of thousands of people died in clashes between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups between 1999 and 2003.

General Bernard Commins, deputy chief of the United Nations peacekeeping force in the DRC, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the two communities had suffered further violence.

Pilo Molondro, a Hema leader, told AFP that 49 deaths had been registered since the beginning of the week and that "all communities are in mourning".

Joel Mande, leader of the Lendu community, said: "We have recorded 40 deaths since Monday, after the death of a trader and his colleagues .The toll could reach 60 dead."

An NGO source said, however, that on Saturday and Tuesday only, "more than 72 people were killed in about ten localities of Djugu and Irumu".

Okapi, the radio station run by UN MONUSCO, said 38 people had been stabbed to death just in the village of Che.

Ituri and the neighboring province of North Kivu, on the eastern border of the DRC, are fighting to stem an Ebola epidemic that has claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people since 1 August.