Suspected Allied Democratic Forces fighters killed at least 23 people in an attack in eastern DR Congo, the latest bloodshed in the volatile province, news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported citing local officials on Monday.
According to local civil society figure Roger Wangeve, the attack occurred late on Sunday in the village of Makugwe, in the Beni district of North Kivu province, killing 24 people, the report said.
“The ADF surprised 17 people drinking beer in a small bar and executed them,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.
Wangeve went on to say that militants also plundered and set fire to several homes and shops in the village, as well as dragging other locals into the bush, the report added.
Provincial deputy Saidi Balikwisha, who was in Makugwe at the time of the incident, stated 23 people were killed and three were missing, according to the report. He advocated for a greater military presence in the area.
Colonel Charles Omeonga, the Congolese military administrator of Beni territory, told AFP that soldiers were “in pursuit of the enemy,” who he said was hidden among the locals, as stated in the report.
The ADF is one of the deadliest groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a volatile territory plagued for decades by militia warfare, the report said further.
According to the report, the Islamic State group claims the militia as its central African offshoot, and it has been accused of slaying hundreds of Congolese civilians and carrying out bomb attacks in Uganda.
Suspected ADF operatives exploded a bomb in a church in North Kivu on January 15, killing at least 14 people and injuring 63 more.
On January 15, an Islamist militant attack on a church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) killed at least ten people and injured more than a dozen others.
According to local territory administrator Charles Omeonga, this was the first time the ADF targeted Kasindi since the group increased its operations in the region in 2014. According to the AFP report, the ADF declared allegiance to Islamic State in 2019 and is suspected of killing hundreds of people in numerous operations over the last two years.
In 2021, the DRC and Uganda launched a joint military operation against the ADF.
(With Inputs From Agencies)
