(Adnkronos) – At least 23 civilians have been killed in the past two days during a series of attacks by Allied Democratic Forces (Adf) militias in the Congolese province of Ituri, in the country’s far northeast. According to civil society sources, most of the victims were civilians displaced from the neighboring province of North Kivu to escape fighting between the army and the anti-government militias of the March 23 Movement (M23).
The Adf attacks targeted the villages of Matoto and Samboko, on the border between the territories of Irumu and Mambasa. This was explained by the head of the local civil society, Paluku Mbowa, who underlined to the newspaper Actualité that the toll is only provisional. Mbowa denounced both the cruelty of the attacks – all the victims were hacked to death – and the impunity now enjoyed by the Adf, one of Africa’s bloodiest armed groups, given that the army is devoting almost all of its troops to the fight against the M23.
