Beni – Rebels affiliated with the Islamic State group killed at least nine civilians in their latest attack in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources told AFP on Wednesday.
Just two days after another massacre nearby by the same rebel group, the ADF, Tuesday evening’s attack unfolded near Tenambo, around 25 kilometres (16 miles) north of the town of Beni in North Kivu province, with the rebels slitting their victims’ throats.
“We deplore the deaths of nine civilians, five wounded and 15 houses burnt down,” Colonel Michel Mbala, police commander for the Beni territory, told AFP. That toll has been confirmed by several local sources, who believe it could rise.
Since the mid-1990s, the ADF, or Allied Democratic Forces, have been present in the DRC’s restive northeast, where the majority-Muslim group of rebels originally from Uganda have killed thousands of civilians.
In 2019, the ADF pledged allegiance to IS, which presents them as its Islamic State Central Africa Province and claims responsibility for some of the rebel group’s attacks.
“Given the modus operandi, the way they set fire to houses and slit the throats of our people, we attribute this incursion squarely to the ADF,” local civil society leader Isaac Kavalami told AFP.
Criminal groups sometimes use the ADF’s methods to disguise their own crimes.
But the police and the mayor of Oicha, the district where the attack took place, assured AFP that the rebels were indeed involved.
On Sunday, the ADF had already killed 14 civilians in Kambi Ya Miba, a village a few dozen kilometres from Oicha, according to local sources.
At the end of 2021, Uganda and the DRC launched a joint military operation against the ADF, which has so far proved unsuccessful in putting an end to their attacks.
The armies have pushed the rebels back into remote and inaccessible areas, where local civilians are often at the mercy of their particularly violent methods.
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Source: AFP
Picture: X/@uaykani
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