No fewer than 58 people have been killed in a militia attack on two villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The DR Congo Government, on Thursday, said the deceased were killed with knives and firearms.
Suspected members of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan armed group operating in the eastern part DR Congo, were said to murdered 23 people in Irumu territory in southern Ituri on Tuesday, followed by 35 on Thursday.
Three chiefs are part of the dead.
Killings of civilians by the ADF militia has increased this year after the government launched a large-scale army campaign to wipe them out. As a result, the ADF abandoned its bases, split into smaller more mobile groups, and took revenge on civilians in an attempt to divert the army’s resources to protect villages.
Ituri province’s provincial interior minister, Adjio Gidi, attributed the attacks to the attacks to the ADF members who were “fleeing military pressure in [neighbouring] North Kivu province, namely in Beni.”