DR Congo’s rebels in attack near Ugandan border

NORTH KIVU, DR Congo

DR Congo’s ADF rebels, facing a joint offensive by Ugandan and Congolese troops, attacked security forces on the border, causing thousands of civilians to flee, local sources said Thursday.

The attack happened on Wednesday night, when Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels attacked a Congolese army position and a police base at Nobili, on the border with Uganda, they said.

Two people were shot dead and two died in a stampede triggered by the fighting, said Pascal Saa Mbili Bhalitusuka, in charge of the administrative area of Watalinga.

Nobili is the transit point for Ugandan forces who on November 30 crossed the border in a joint operation with Congolese troops aimed at crushing the ADF.

The ADF — which the so-called Islamic State describes as its local affiliate — has been blamed for thousands of deaths in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as a spate of recent bomb attacks in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

"Initial estimates suggest that potentially 3,000 people crossed into Uganda early Thursday,” Leslie Velez, UNHCR Uganda’s head of external relations, told AFP in a phone interview.

"They include women and men, but they are outnumbered by children,” she said.

Some returned in the early morning, the UNHCR and Red Cross said.

Bhalitusuka said the rebels freed several prisoners who had been in the Nobili police station’s jail but added that he did not know whether this was the main goal of the attack.

Congolese and Ugandan troops “intervened to repel the assailants,” he said.

David Moaze, coordinator of a local rights group called ADDHO, said he was concerned about the attack and accused the Ugandan and DRC militaries of failing to secure the area.

The DRC authorities say the two-month-old joint operation is succeeding.

On Monday, General Sylvain Ekenge, spokesman for the military governor of North Kivu province, said the army had taken control of a number of ADF strongholds, leaving the rebels “at bay and roaming around”.

The ADF was historically a Ugandan rebel coalition whose biggest group comprised Muslims opposed to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

But it established itself in eastern DR Congo in 1995, becoming the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the troubled region.

The Islamic State group presents the ADF as its regional branch — the Islamic State Central Africa Province, or ISCAP.

In March last year, the United States placed the ADF on its list of “terrorist groups” affiliated with IS jihadists.