Civilians killed in eastern DRC rebel attack

ADF fighters are accused of killing civilians with machetes in DRC’s Beni region.
WEB MAP DRCONGO BENI published on 29 May 2022 that several civilians have been killed by rebel fighters in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to the country’s army and civil society groups.

A spokesman for the DRC army told the AFP news agency that “more than a dozen” people have been killed in Saturday’s attack, while the Red Cross put the death toll at 24.

The Kivu Security Tracker (KST), which monitors violence in the region via a team of experts on the ground, said at least 27 civilians have died.

The killings took place in a village in the Beni region in North Kivu province, army spokesperson Anthony Mualushayi told AFP.

“We heard bullets at dawn in the village of Beu Manyama. When we arrived, it was already too late because the enemy ADF had already killed more than a dozen of our fellow citizens with machetes,” he said.

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have been accused of killing thousands of civilians in DRC’s troubled east.

After the attack, soldiers pursued the attackers and “neutralised seven ADF” and captured another, Mualushayi said.

Local Red Cross head Philippe Bonane put the civilian death toll at 24.

The massacre comes after almost a month of relative calm in Beni, where the Congolese and Ugandan armies have been conducting joint military operations against the ADF since late November.

On Friday another Red Cross representative said that soldiers in the neighbouring Ituri province had found 17 decapitated bodies, also believed to be victims of the ADF.

More than 120 armed groups roam eastern DRC and civilian massacres are common.

Both the North Kivu and Ituri have been under a “state of siege” since May last year. The army and police have replaced senior administrators in a bid to stem attacks by armed groups.

Despite this, the authorities have been unable to stop the massacres regularly carried out against civilians.

The military governor of North Kivu, Lieutenant General Constant Ndima assured, Saturday, May 28, that no millimeter of the national territory will remain in the hands of anyone.

In an official communication in Goma, he called on the population for calm, vigilance and to avoid any illegal initiative, tending to replace the defense and security forces.

Lieutenant General Constant Ndima made this communication while clashes opposed the Congolese army to the rebels of the M23, in the territories of Rutshuru and Nyiragongo.

“ The military governor calls on everyone to exercise restraint. The FARDC assure the population that no millimeter of the national territory of the DRC will remain in the hands of anyone,” said the governor’s spokesman, General Sylvain Ekenge.

However, he denounces calls for violence and revenge that have been observed for some time.

On the other hand, this FARDC officer also invited everyone ” to keep an eye out and denounce any suspicious presence to the FARDC, the PNC, and the specialized services… ”

Last Wednesday, the provincial authority of North Kivu seized the Extended Joint Verification Mechanism (MCVE) for an investigation into “serious incidents” caused by the resurgence of attacks by the M23, supported, according to it, by the Rwandan army.