BENI, DR Congo: In the latest attack, suspected Islamist militants hacked 12 people to death in the troubled region of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, the local officials said.
Fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) group, the deadliest militias in eastern Congo, launched an attack early Thursday evening on the village of Bukokoma, in North Kivu province’s Beni territory, according to local civil-society representative Ricardo Rupande.
The Islamic State group, the deadliest militias in the region and accused of slaughtering thousands of civilians, claims the ADF as its central African affiliate. Katanga Matete, an administrator in the Bukokoma area, told AFP that the militants “were opening doors and decapitating people with hatchets and machetes.” Twelve people were killed, he said.
A local Red Cross official, Albert Ndungo also said that 12 people including four women and four children were killed “by bladed weapons,”. AFP was unable to independently confirm the details of the attack. Thursday’s violence follows a similar attack in Beni territory last week, which saw nine people killed.
According to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 50 people have been killed in Beni territory in May alone. A joint Congolese-Ugandan military operation targeting the ADF in eastern Congo has been underway since late 2021, but attacks have continued.
Much of the volatile region is prey to armed groups, a legacy of regional wars that flared during the 1990s and early 2000s. — AFP
