BENI, DR Congo
Armed groups have killed seven civilians and three members of the security forces in eastern DR Congo, where a clinic was set ablaze, local sources said on Thursday.
Two
soldiers at Butembo, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Beni in North Kivu
province, were killed by “Mai-mai militiamen,” said Colonel Donat Mandonga, the
chief administrative official in neighbouring Lubero district.
A
policeman and four militiamen were also killed in the fighting, said Captain
Anthony Mualushayi, the army’s spokesman in the Beni region.
The
term “Mai-mai’ is widely used to describe armed groups claiming to represent
communities in the region’s many ethnic feuds.
Separately,
the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) on Wednesday killed four women and three men
as they worked in fields near the Ugandan border, Ricardo Rupande, a community
organiser in Rwenzori, told AFP.
The
ADF is a group that the self-described Islamic State group says is an
affiliate.
The
same night, ADF members set fire to a medical centre in the village of Luonoli,
“reducing it to ashes,” Luonoli village chief Semu Kiheka told AFP, adding that
local people fled after the attack.
The
ADF is the most violent of more than 120 armed groups that roam eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, according to monitors.
The
group is accused of killing thousands of people in a years-long campaign in the
region, and of orchestrating recent attacks in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
On
November 30, Ugandan troops began to deploy across the border, joining
Congolese troops in a crackdown on the ADF in the Beni region.
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