Scores killed in series of militia attacks in eastern DRC

Monitoring group reports at least 33 casualties in three days of attacks blamed on ADF – the deadliest of several armed militias that roam the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Scores of armed militias operate in the mineral-rich eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars from 1996 to 2003.
AP

Scores of armed militias operate in the mineral-rich eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars from 1996 to 2003.

At least seven people have been killed in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in two overnight attacks blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia, a monitoring group and a local official said, bringing the death toll in the region to 33 in three days. 

The Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a monitoring organisation that has experts in the region, said on Friday that the assaults left seven people dead and two missing.

The attacks occurred along the road linking Beni and Kasindi, a strategic supply route for the Beni region protected by a Congolese army presence as well as UN peace keeping forces.

"The targets were firstly a truck that was carrying cocoa cargo towards Kasindi – the driver was shot dead and two other people were burned inside the vehicle," territorial administrator Donat Kibuana told AFP news agency.

"Then the same ADF (fighters) burned five people in their home," he said.

On Thursday KST said the toll from an attack overnight Tuesday in the same sector – the mountainous Rwenzori area of greater Beni – had risen from 13 dead to 26.

READ MORE: UN says 200 killed, 40,000 displaced in DRC by ADF militia since January

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Worsening security

That attack was also attributed to ADF, a historically Ugandan group that has holed up in eastern DRC since 1995.

Scores of armed militias operate in the mineral-rich eastern Congo, many of them a legacy of two regional wars from 1996 to 2003. 

More than 500 civilians have been killed in the provinces of North and South Kivu alone since the start of the year, according to an AFP toll based on NGO figures and local sources.

The United States has said the ADF is linked to Daesh, and was known as ISIS-DRC or Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen.

DRC's President Felix Tshisekedi this month proclaimed a 30-day "state of siege" – effectively martial law – in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province in a bid to curb bloodshed by the ADF. 

READ MORE: ADF militia kills scores in eastern DRC

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