25 killed in fresh eastern DRC massacre allegedly by ADF fighters
“When I heard cries and tears, I fled into the bush, I continued the path at night to Mamove”, a neighbouring village, local farmer January Maneno said.
CAPE TOWN, April 1 (ANA) – Twenty-five people have been killed in a new massacre in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), allegedly by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia fighters, according to a local official.
Fighters attacked Beu Manyama-Moliso village in the restive Beni region late on Tuesday night, North Kivu provincial governor Carly Nzanzu Kasivita told news agency AFP on Wednesday. The army intervened, killing two assailants, he said.
“We are in mourning, the ADF carried out a raid and killed more than 20 people,” said Noella Katongerwaki Muliwavyo, president of an association of grassroots groups in Beni.
Beu Manyama-Moliso is a small village located in remote forests in the Beni region, close to the boundary with Ituri province.
“When I heard cries and tears, I fled into the bush, I continued the path at night to Mamove”, a neighboring village, local farmer January Maneno, told AFP.
“All the other farmers who stayed there are dead,” he said.
The ADF is a rebel group that originated in Uganda but has expanded into the neighbouring DRC. The group has been carrying out attacks in the eastern part of the country since the 1990s, when the rebels arrived on the scene with a political agenda.
They have since abandoned their political demands and degenerated into a terrorist militia group involved in trafficking minerals from the eastern DRC.
Earlier this month, the ADF was suspected to have been behind two overnight attacks that claimed 10 lives in the eastern DRC.
At least eight people were decapitated in the village of Boyo in the north-east Ituri province, while two others were shot dead in Kainama village, allegedly by ADF fighters, international news broadcaster Al Jazeera reported, citing army spokesperson Lieutenant Jules Ngongo.
Donat Kibwana, local territorial administrator in charge of Beni Territory in North Kivu province, last week told AFP that 12 people were killed in a fresh attack allegedly carried out by the ADF.
On March 11, the US said the ADF was linked to the Islamic State (IS) group and was known as ISIS-DRC or Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen.
In a statement released through its propaganda site, the IS claimed responsibility for two attacks on “two Congolese army posts” in villages in the Rwenzori sector in south-eastern Beni territory.
UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that “at least” 2,945 civilians had been killed in the conflict, with figures including “553 women and 286 children”.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Devereaux Morkel
