Dozens killed in eastern DRC, blamed on ADF militia

About three dozen people have died in the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, local officials said Tuesday, blaming the notorious ADF militia that has massacred hundreds of civilians over the past year.

Twenty-nine bodies were found in Virunga Park after they were “executed en masse,” said the Interior Minister of North Kivu province, Jean-Bosco Sebishimbo.

He added that six civilians were also killed during “an armed attack” in the nearby village of Kokola early Tuesday.

The UN MONUSCO mission confirmed that six people died in Kokola, while local sources spoke of seven dead.

“The first indications about the perpetrators of these vile acts point to the ADF fighters, who are very active in the area,” said Sebishimbo.

Both attacks occurred in the Beni Territory of North Kivu, where 811 civilians have been killed since October 31 last year, according to the Kivu Security Tracker.

It was on that date that the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo launched a major operation against the leaders and bases of the ADF in the jungle around Beni.

The militia responded by intensifying a campaign of massacres in rural areas, seeking to dissuade civilians from collaborating with the military, experts say.

“The horror of this new and macabre discovery cannot leave anyone indifferent,” said the ambassador of the European Union to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Marc Chataigner.

The ADF, which originated in the 1990s as a Muslim rebel group in Uganda, is one of more than 100 militias ravaging the vast eastern provinces of the country.

The ADF has never claimed responsibility for the attacks. But since April 2019, several of his assaults have been claimed by the Central African province of the so-called Islamic State, without providing evidence.