At least 10 civilians were killed last week in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo in an attack allegedly carried out by members of a jihadist militant group originally formed by Ugandan rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
“At least 10 civilians were killed on Wednesday (May 12th) in the villages of Engaka and Mangudu (…) in Ituri province,” Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a non-governmental organization, said in a post on its Twitter account.
“Sources in the area suspect (that the attack was carried out by its jihadists) ADF, possibly in collaboration with a local armed group,” added KST, which records the violent incidents and attacks by armed groups in eastern Congo.
On Sunday, the governor of Mambasa told a AFP correspondent that 15 bodies had been found in the area the previous day.
“Young people discovered 15 decomposing bodies on the outskirts of Engaka village on Saturday,” said Idris Koma Koukondila.
“Apparently, they were killed in attacks on Thursday and Friday in this village and in the neighboring villages of Loukagia and Makouko,” Koma added.
The corpses were buried by the Red Cross.
The perpetrators of the attacks were members of the ADF, the governor estimated. The organization usually operates several kilometers southeast, on the outskirts of the city of Beni, in the neighboring province of North Kivu.
For its part, the UN radio station Okapi, citing sources in the area, reported that 21 people had been killed in the area since the beginning of last week, while another fifty others had been abducted by ADF members.
“The army presence is sparse in the Mambasa region and the jihadists are ‘benefiting,'” Koma said, calling for reinforcements to be sent to his area and expressing concern about the displacement of people who had already fled their homes due to the violence.
The ADF was founded by Muslim rebels from Uganda who settled in the area in 1995. The group is accused of atrocities against civilians it accuses of collaborating with the military after the armed forces launched large-scale operations against it. It is considered the most ruthless of the 122 armed groups recorded operating in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo: it is estimated that it has slaughtered more than 1,000 civilians in the last eighteen months.
On March 11, the United States added the ADF to its list of “terrorist organizations” collaborating with the Islamic State (IS). Since 2019, IK has taken responsibility for some of ADF’s actions.
On May 6, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Cissekendi, declared a state of “siege” in the eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu in order to implement measures to reduce violence, especially ADF attacks. Army officers replaced the political governors of the two provinces last week.
