BUNIA (DR Congo), March 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The death toll from weekend militia attacks on villages in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has climbed to more than 30, including children, local sources said.
Militants from CODECO — a group claiming to protect the Lendu community from another ethnic group, the Hema — were accused of targeting five villages in the northeastern Ituri province early on Saturday.
CODECO also allegedly stole cattle as well as ransacking and burning homes.
Arnold Lokwa, a local official in the Panduru area where the villages are located, said that a previous toll of 15 dead had risen to 31, with the search for other victims continuing.
Lokwa warned that the toll could increase after what he called a “targeted massacre”.
A humanitarian source said 39 bodies had been found, mostly women, with three young children among the dead.
The source said the 39 victims were located in three villages but that the other two were inaccessible on Monday for security reasons.
The attack in Ituri came on the same day as a reported assault by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels in neighbouring North Kivu province that killed nine people and was claimed by the Daesh group.
Fighting between the army, militias and the M23 rebel group is also raging in the southern part of North Kivu.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi placed Ituri and North Kivu under a “state of siege” in 2021, replacing civilians with military administrators, but the measure has failed to stop violence in a region wracked by unrest since the 1990s.
Meanwhile, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the press at the UN hq that In the last two weeks, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel attacks resulted in at least 118 civilian casualties, said
Haq said the peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known as MONUSCO, reported a string of attacks in neighboring North Kivu and Ituri provinces overnight on Saturday, triggering population displacement.
“In the village of Nguli in North Kivu, suspected ADF members killed at least 10 civilians, and abducted three others,” he said.
The spokesman said MONUSCO and DRC defense forces launched joint patrols along the Beni-Butembo road in response, engaging with local authorities and community members in ADF areas.
To the north, in Ituri province, at least 11 civilians died, including two women and two children, in simultaneous raids by the armed group CODECO across several villages in Mahagi territory, Haq said, adding that peacekeepers dispatched a patrol to the village of Ngote to protect civilians fleeing the violence and to support efforts by the national army to restore stability there. — NNN-AGENCIES
