Newsdeck

Newsdeck

Forty-six civilians feared killed in eastern Congo attack, official says

KINSHASA, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Forty-six civilians are reported to have been killed in an attack by suspected Islamist militants on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a senior provincial official said on Thursday.

Local security forces have been dispatched to the village in Irumu territory to investigate, provincial interior minister Adjio Gidi said by phone.

“The death toll as of this afternoon is reported to be 46,” Gidi said.

He said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were behind the raid. The Ugandan armed group is believed to have carried out a string of massacres in eastern Congo, killing more than 1,000 civilians since the start of 2019, according to U.N. figures.

After being alerted to the latest violence, troops went to the village and are in the process of recovering bodies, local army spokesman Jules Ngongo said. He did not say how many had been killed.

Congo’s eastern borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are home to a constellation of over 100 different militias, many remnants of its brutal civil wars that officially ended in 2003.

On Sunday, unidentified attackers killed at least six rangers in an ambush in eastern Congo’s Virunga National Park, a sanctuary for endangered mountain gorillas.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for many suspected ADF attacks in the past, although U.N. experts have not been able to confirm any direct link between the two groups. (Reporting by Stanis Bujakera and Erikas Mwisi Kambale; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.