Suspected ADF Militia Kills 13 In Eastern DR Congo

Thirteen people in eastern DR Congo have been killed in a gruesome attack blamed on a militia that the US says is linked to the Islamic State group, local officials said Wednesday

Beni, DR Congo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th May, 2021 ) :Thirteen people in eastern DR Congo have been killed in a gruesome attack blamed on a militia that the US says is linked to the Islamic State group, local officials said Wednesday.

The massacre attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) occurred late Tuesday in the village of Kisima-Vutotolia, 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the city of Beni on the highway leading to Uganda, said territorial administrator Donat Kibuana.

"The situation in Kisima is very tragic. There was a raid by the ADF around 7 pm last night. Thirteen people lost their lives," he said.

"Several inhabitants are missing," he added.

"We have already recovered 13 bodies. These people were bound and decapitated," an aid worker told AFP.

The Kivu Security Tracker (KST), which monitors violence in the region, said seven bodies of civilians were found in nearby Singipa, and that around a dozen people were missing.

The new massacre brings to more than 1,200 the number of civilians killed in the Beni area since November 2019, it said.

Roger Masimango, a representative of civil society groups in the Rwenzori area, said the village chief in Kisima and his wife were among the dead.

"Two children aged four and two months were found alive next to the corpses of their parents," Masimango said.

The ADF is the deadliest of scores of armed militias that roam the mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Many are a legacy of two regional wars from 1996 to 2003.

More than 500 civilians have been killed in the provinces of North and South Kivu alone since the start of the year, according to an AFP toll based on NGO figures and local sources.

The ADF is a historically Ugandan Islamist group that has holed up in eastern DRC since 1995.

On March 11, the United States said the ADF was linked to the Islamic State (IS) group, and was known as ISIS-DRC or Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen.

DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi on May 6 proclaimed a 30-day "state of siege" -- effectively martial law -- in North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province in a bid to curb bloodshed by the ADF.

Under the move, military and police officers have taken over from civilian authorities.

The last bloodshed blamed on the ADF left 31 dead on May 12 northwest of Beni.