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GOMA(Reuters) – Islamist rebels killed twelve people in two attacks in a region of eastern Congo that is struggling to contain the Ebola outbreak, local authorities said Tuesday.
Assumed Rebels of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) simultaneously attacked the towns of Eringeti and Oicha in the locality of Beni on Monday, the epicenter of an Ebola epidemic, said the administrator of the territory Beni, Kasereka Donat.
They killed nine people in Eringeti and three in Oicha, he said. A civil society leader based in Beni, January Kasahiryo,
gave the same numbers.
"Despite the heavy deployment of Congolese army troops in the region, the population is in a state of total panic because of these attacks," said Donat.
Since last month, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks by the ADFbut their relationship is cloudy .. Although the ADF has never claimed allegiance to an Islamic state, the organization has described areas under ADF influence as "province of Central Africa".
The presence of a group of Islamist militants, coupled with a mosaic of other violent militias and armed criminal organizations, has severely hampered efforts to contain the second-worst Ebola epidemic in the world.
Ebola killed more than 1,700 people and last week the World Health Organization declared that it was an international health emergency.
(Report by Djaffar Al Katanty and Fiston Mahamba, Written by Tim Cocks, Edited by Dan Grebler)
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