Reuters
Militants killed at least eight people during a raid on a weekly market in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and eyewitnesses blamed fighters from an armed Ugandan Islamist group.
Gili Gutapu of a local civil rights group said that ADF fighters entered the village of Mamplenga in Irumu province on Tuesday afternoon and began shooting. Two of the attackers were killed in the raid.
A Congolese army spokesman confirmed the attack in Mambalinga, located midway between the cities of Bunia and Beni in the east.
“In broad daylight, we suddenly saw poorly dressed armed men carrying weapons and machetes. They started shooting at us directly,” said Mimber Kokuma, a resident of the village.
“I took my daughter and ran into the bush.”
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel faction that has been active in eastern Congo since the 1990s, has committed a series of brutal reprisal attacks on civilians since the army began operations against it in late 2019.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have been blamed for the deaths of more than 140 people since the start of the year, in nearly weekly attacks in the troubled eastern Congo. According to United Nations figures, the group killed about 850 people last year.
ISIS claimed responsibility for several attacks suspected of being affiliated with the ADF in the past, although UN experts did not find any direct link between the two groups.
Source: Reuters
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