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Suspected ADF militia fighters killed 23 people in a new massacre in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a senior local official said on Wednesday.
Fighters attacked the village of Beu Manyama-Moliso in the troubled region of Beni on Tuesday evening, the governor of North Kivu province, Carly Nzanzu Kasivita, told AFP.
The army intervened, killing two attackers, he said.
“We are in mourning, the ADF carried out a raid and killed more than 20 people,” declared Noella Katongerwaki Muliwavyo, president of an association of grassroots groups in Beni.
Beu Manyama-Moliso is a small village located in the remote forests of the Beni region, near the border with Ituri province.
A historically Ugandan Islamist group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are the bloodiest of dozens of armed militias roaming eastern DRC, many of which are the legacy of two regional wars in the 1990s.
The ADF is linked to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, the United States said earlier this month.
According to Kivu Security Tracker, an NGO that monitors violence in troubled eastern DRC, the group has killed more than 1,200 civilians in the Beni region alone since 2017.
On March 19, the UN said a wave of ADF attacks since the start of the year had left nearly 200 dead and forced 40,000 people to flee their homes.
At least 17 were killed in separate attacks on March 23.
Regional military awareness
Meanwhile, the DR Congo army said it had reached out to militaries in neighboring countries to help “neutralize” armed groups in the troubled east.
The armed forces “have made contact with all the armies of neighboring countries to develop appropriate strategies for a lasting solution to the thorny issue of insecurity” in the Great Lakes region, he said on Tuesday.
Map showing Beni in eastern DR Congo. By (AFP) His statement, signed by army spokesman General Leon-Richard Kasonga, said the DRC was in favor of “strengthening military cooperation, regular consultations between the armies in the region … (and ) the pooling of efforts and information “.
According to the Congo Research Group, a follow-up project with New York University, a Rwandan military delegation led by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Jean-Bosco Kazura discreetly flew to Kinshasa on March 15 for talks on military cooperation.
Relations between the DRC and its neighbors, in particular Rwanda, have been stormy.
The DRC accused Rwanda of seeking to destabilize it, while Rwanda accused the DRC of being a rear base for armed opposition groups, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Previous cooperation missions aimed at eliminating armed groups have failed and met with hostility from public opinion in the DRC.
According to the KST, around 122 armed groups roam eastern DRC.
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