In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo‘s Djugu area, the Codeco militia group executed 17 hostages on Sunday.
According to UN-sponsored Radio Okapi, the dead were passengers in four vehicles traveling to Mungwalu in the Ituri province.
The radio added that they were taken prisoner following the deaths of three Codeco members in an altercation with an opposing group.
Reports indicate that among those taken hostage was a pregnant woman. Local authorities are yet to comment on the attack.
The Codeco, a militia that claims to protect the Lendu farming community in Ituri, is one of myriad armed groups operating in the restive, mineral-rich region.
The group was initially founded in what was then Mobuto-led Zaire in the 1970s as a Lendu-based agricultural cooperative by Bernard Kakado, with the intention of promoting agriculture in the Walendu-Bindi chiefdom of the Irumu Territory of Ituri.
The group became a mouthpiece for Lendu demands, namely the reclamation of land allegedly taken by the Hema tribe and the refusal to accept foreign exploitation of local resources.
During the 1999-2003 Ituri conflict, CODECO’s founder Bernard Kakado instead began organising an armed Lendu operation, before joining the Patriotic Resistance Front of Ituri (FRPI). At this point, CODECO ceased to exist as an agricultural cooperative.
In 2003, the internationally-led Operation Artemis succeeded in ending the violence between the Lendu and Hema groups, achieving a period of relative stability in the region. However, neither the organisation nor the various local militias ever completely dissolved and instead stockpiled weapons.
In 2017, armed militia attacks began in Djugu, which local civilians attributed to CODECO. Congolese authorities stated that the group behind the attacks was led by Justin Ngudjolo, who had begun using the CODECO name to describe his militia, despite being linked to the Nationalist and Integrationist Front – another Lendu rebel group.