Monitoring Desk
BENI, DR Congo: In the latest violence in the turbulent region, suspected Allied Democratic Forces militants have killed at least 23 people in an attack in eastern DR Congo, said local officials on Monday.
The attack took place overnight on Sunday in the village of Makugwe, in the Beni area of North Kivu province, local civil society figure Roger Wangeve said, who put the death toll at 24.
“The ADF surprised 17 persons in a small bar where they were drinking beer and executed them,” Wangeve said.
Wangeve added that militants also torched and looted several homes and shops in the village of Makugwe and carried off several villagers into the nearby bush.
ADF attacks in eastern DR Congo
North Kivu provincial deputy Saidi Balikwisha, who was in Makugwe at the time of the attack, said 23 were killed, and three others are still missing.
He asked for an increased military presence in the area.
The Congolese military administrator of the Beni area, Colonel Charles Omeonga, told AFP that soldiers were “in pursuit of the enemy,” who were hiding among the local population.
The ADF is one of the deadliest militant groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a volatile region plagued by militia violence for decades.
The Islamic State group claims the militia is its central African affiliate — has been accused of executing and slaughtering thousands of Congolese civilians and carrying out bomb blasts in Uganda.
On January 15, suspected ADF fighters detonated a bomb in a church in North Kivu, killing as many as 14 people and injuring 63 other people.
