Islamic State-linked rebels killed at least 15 people in three villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Lubero territory, two officials said on Friday, keeping up a pattern of lethal attacks mostly targeting civilians.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) began as an insurgent force in Uganda but has been based in the forests of neighbouring DRC since the late 1990s, and is recognised by Islamic State as an affiliate.
DRC’s army and Ugandan forces have pursued operations against the ADF, but the group’s raids persist.
Its latest attacks occurred on Thursday night in Lubero, part of North Kivu province. Nine civilians were killed in Kilonge, two civilians in Katanga and two civilians and two soldiers in Maendeleo, according to Macaire Sivikunula, chief of the Bapere locality where the villages are located.
“The ADF rebels killed most victims with bladed weapons,” though they also exchanged gunfire with soldiers in Maendeleo, he told Reuters.
Alain Kiwewa, Lubero’s military administrator, said on Friday afternoon 16 people had been confirmed dead.
Local officials are waiting for soldiers to secure the area before organising funerals for victims of the overnight attacks because ‘the ADF are cunning [and] can ambush civilians who try to organise this kind of activity’
— Macaire Sivikunula, Bapere locality chief
An army spokesperson, Lt Marc Elongo, said DRC troops are “pursuing the enemy” without providing details.
Kakule Kagheni Samuel, head of civil society groups in Bapere, said the militants also burnt homes to the ground.
The UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African country, known as Monusco, said in November the ADF killed 89 civilians in strikes over the course of a week.
In September the ADF claimed responsibility for an attack that claimed the lives of more than 60 civilians at a funeral in eastern DRC.
Sivikunula said local officials are waiting for soldiers to secure the area before organising funerals for victims of the overnight attacks because “the ADF are cunning [and] can ambush civilians who try to organise this kind of activity”.
The ADF violence is separate from the war between DRC and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels that killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands last year, prompting mediation by US President Donald Trump’s administration and Qatar.
Reuters
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