According to local officials and a local human rights group, assailants killed a dozen people in two overnight attacks in eastern DRC. The army stated that the fighters launched their assault on the towns of Oicha and Kisima in North Kivu Province. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia was blamed for the attacks in the Beni area, close to the Ugandan border.
Bozi Sindiwako, chief official for the Rwenzori area in North Kivu, and the Association Foreign Press news agency reported 11 people killed in the first attack in Disima. Although the DRC’s army spokesman acknowledged the attack without giving the number of casualties, the final death toll has also been confirmed by the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a US-based monitoring group on human rights violations. Reuters managed to interview a few survivors of the attacks, who have reported to have seen a high number of assailants, speaking in a foreign language.
The Ugandan militia has been active in DRC since the 1990s, with ADF responding with a series of massacres, relentlessly attacking the most vulnerable civilians. President Felix Tshisekedi recently stated that he wants to end decades of unrest in the mineral-rich east, but the UN reports that the killings have more than doubled, compared to last year. According to KST, the latest episodes made the number of civilian victims killed by armed groups in Beni to over 1,010.
To know more, please read:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/2/24/13-killed-in-dr-congo-attacks-blamed-on-adf-militia
https://www.reuters.com/article/congo-security-attacks-idINKBN2AO1SU
Author: Barbara Caltabiano
