An armed group attacked a camp for displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northeastern Ituri province on Friday, killing 10 individuals, according to local sources.
This incident marks a renewed escalation in the long-running ethnic conflict that has plagued the region.
Ituri province, bordering Uganda, has been a flashpoint for years, witnessing intense clashes primarily between the Lendu, a group predominantly comprising settled farmers, and the Hema people, who are typically nomadic herders. This conflict has resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and widespread displacement.
Friday’s assault on the Djangi displaced persons camp was carried out by the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco), a Lendu-aligned militia previously responsible for massacres against civilians, the camp’s head told AFP.
Richard Likana, the camp head, described the attack: “There were many, and they were armed with firearms and machetes. They surprised us; they killed 10 displaced people, most of them women and children.”
An anonymous Red Cross employee confirmed the attack, which occurred approximately 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Bunia, adding that victims were “cut up with machetes while others were shot.”
Congolese army Colonel Ruffin Mapela, the local administrator for Djugu territory where the camp is located, corroborated the toll of 10 dead and 15 injured.
According to local and humanitarian sources, Codeco was also responsible for a February 10 attack that killed 51 people in Ituri province, with most victims also being displaced persons. That raid was reportedly a retaliation for a strike by the rival Hema-led Zaire militia in the same area.
The violence between the Hema and Lendu communities previously claimed thousands of lives in gold-rich Ituri between 1999 and 2003, only subsiding after European forces intervened.
The conflict reignited in 2017, leading to thousands more fatalities and forcing over 1.5 million people to flee their homes, according to the UN.
