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Militiamen attacked a refugee camp in Ituri, in northeastern Congo. Fourteen people were killed, including seven children.
One of the camps in Ituri province, DRC.
AFP
Fourteen displaced people, including seven children, were killed on Saturday in an attack by militiamen in a refugee camp in Ituri, in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, we learned on Sunday from the Cross -local red.
A two-year-old girl and five women aged between 25 and 32 are among the victims who were killed with machetes, according to a list drawn up by the local Red Cross, consulted by AFP.
“The Codeco (Cooperative for the Development of Congo) militiamen entered Drakpa where they killed with machetes” displaced people, Jean D’Zba Banju, head of a group of villages, told AFP. in Ndo Banju in the territory of Djugu (Ituri).
“These displaced people had fled the Ngotshi village to settle in Drakpa,” he explained, adding that five other people were injured.
The Codeco militia is an armed group structured around a religious sect. They claim to defend the Lendu tribe, one of the communities of Ituri, against the army and the Hema tribe.
In the neighboring territory of Beni, “four young people were killed in an ambush on Saturday by ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) rebels, three kilometers from Eringeti”, said Sabiti Njiamoja, official delegate of the governor of North Kivu in this city.
At least 96 civilians
Since May, North Kivu and Ituri have been placed under siege. Kinshasa has replaced the civil authorities there with army and police officers, giving them full power, without succeeding in putting an end to the massacres.
At the end of November, joint military operations by the Congolese and Ugandan armies were launched against the rebels of the Ugandan group ADF, accused of jihadist attacks on Ugandan soil. The Islamic State (IS) group considers them its branch in Central Africa.
An elected official from North Kivu, Jean-Baptiste Muhindo Kasekwa, has drawn up a balance sheet of at least 96 civilians killed in the territories of Irumu (Ituri) and Beni (North Kivu) between March 9 and 14, 383 since the launch of Congolese-Ugandan operations and 2068 since the establishment of the state of siege.
(AFP)