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The governor of North Kivu said fighters attacked a village in the Beni region on Tuesday evening, accusing ADF rebels of being responsible for the killings.
Suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia fighters killed 23 people in another massacre in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a senior local official said.
Fighters attacked the village of Beu Manyama-Moliso in the Beni region on Tuesday evening, the governor of North Kivu province, Carly Nzanzu Kasivita, told AFP news agency.
The army intervened, killing two attackers, he said.
The death toll was still provisional as the body search continued, the governor’s office said on Twitter on Wednesday.
“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.
The ADF, which emerged in the 1990s in western Uganda with the aim of establishing an Islamic state, is one of more than 100 rebel groups plaguing the eastern provinces of the vast country. .
About a year ago, the Congolese army launched a large-scale campaign against the ADF.
The ADF is linked to the ISIL Group (ISIS), the United States said earlier this month. United Nations experts, however, found no evidence of a direct relationship between the two groups.
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 killed nearly 200 people and forced 40,000 to flee their homes.
At least 17 were killed in separate attacks on March 23.
Last year, the UN said the group’s attacks could amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The ADF earns money from timber trafficking, and DRC officials suspect some soldiers of being complicit in its violent raids.
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