At least 17 people were killed in an attack on Sunday by suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group, linked to the Islamic State, on three villages in Ituri province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Civil society sources have detailed in declarations to the Congolese news portal 7sur7 that the attackers broke into three localities in the territory of Irumu and «executed civilians with bladed weapons and firearms, mainly in Manyali».
The secretary general of the civil society in Irumu, Dieudonné Malangayi, said that «elements of the security forces killed two rebels and recovered a lot of ammunition» in Bandimbese after a clash following the attacks.
«We called on elements of the Armed Forces to launch an offensive against the enemy. At the moment, the ADF are at many points in the Walese Vonjuntu area. They must be located quickly so that the population can carry out their activities in peace,» he stressed.
The incident took place a week after the death of 23 people in an attack on the town of Makungwe, the responsibility for which was claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA), to which the ADF pledged allegiance.
The ADF, a Ugandan group created in the 1990s, has been accused of the killing of hundreds of civilians in this part of the country. The group underwent a split in 2019 after Musa Baluku — sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States — swore allegiance to the jihadist group, under whose banner it has been operating ever since.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
