SUSPECTED TERRORISTS ATTACK EASTERN DR CONGO, KILLS 20

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Agency Report

About 20 people have died in an attack in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to local sources who spoke to AFP on Thursday. The attackers are believed to be Islamic State militants.

The attack happened in the Beni district of the unstable North Kivu province, and locals have linked it to a terrorist organization called the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

“The victims were cultivating their fields,” Nicolas Kikuku, mayor of the commune of Oicha, the capital of the Beni territory, told AFP.

He added that 20 deaths had been recorded.

“The enemy always attacks the poor farmers,” the mayor said.

In a village around thirty kilometers (19 miles) from Oicha, where the majority of the victims were transported, the farmers were slain by gunshot or knife.

The mayor was unable to provide a precise date for their passing.

“Nineteen bodies were brought to the morgue last night,” Darius Syaira, civil society representative for Beni told AFP.

“This is a provisional report, because we have been informed of other bodies” in the same area, he added.

“We are asking for military reinforcements” in this region west of Oicha “to go on the offensive against the ADF who are causing us grief at all times,” Syaira said.

Over the past thirty years, the ADF—which was initially primarily composed of Muslim rebels from Uganda—has entrenched itself in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing hundreds of people in the process.

The forces of Uganda and the Congo have been cooperating since the end of 2021 to combat the ADF in North Kivu and the neighboring province of Ituri; yet, they have not been able to halt the horrific assaults on people.

In 2019, the ADF swore allegiance to the Islamic State group, which considers them to be its branch in central Africa.

The ADF is alleged to have orchestrated attacks in Uganda, a neighbor, and massacred civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

AFP