NORTH KIVU, DR Congo
Rebels killed seven people and kidnapped a nurse during an attack overnight in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, targeting two health centres, local sources said Thursday.
"They even killed sick people,"
Norbert Muhindo, a nurse at the referral clinic in the town of Maboya, in the
Beni territory of North Kivu province said.
The rebels belonged to the
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a movement presented by the jihadist
organisation Islamic State as its affiliate in Central Africa, Muhindo said.
The raiders arrived in Maboya
"around midnight", he declared, adding: "There were many of
them. They said 'We want war'."
The attackers first set fire
to the health centre, where they killed three people, before heading into the
centre of the town, where three more killings were reported.
Muhindo said they moved on to
"the Tinge hospital owned by the Protestant community", about 1.5
kilometres (almost a mile) from the Maboya health centre.
At Tinge, "they killed a
sentry and took a nurse with them," he said.
Roger Wangeve, president of
the civil society of the Bashu chiefdom (an administrative body), confirmed the
incursion, blaming "ADF rebels" who "burned the Tinge hospital
and the Maboya referral health centre".
According to Wangeve, the
rebel force later "burned and looted villages".
The provisional toll of seven dead was confirmed by a police source who asked
not to be named.
After a few weeks of calm,
attacks have apparently resumed in the Beni territory, where the Congolese and
Ugandan armies have been engaged in joint operations against the ADF for almost
a year.
The ADF, which originated in
western Uganda, is accused of massacres of civilians in the east of the DRC and
jihadist attacks at the end of 2021 in Uganda.
Eastern DRC has been
destabilised for nearly three decades by the presence of more than a hundred
local and foreign armed groups, including the ADF.
The DRC's provinces of North
Kivu and Ituri have been under a state of siege since May 2021, but the
exceptional measure has so far failed to stop the violence.
The joint DRC-Ugandan
operation said that the ADF was being "pursued in depth, is... rootless
and very often attacks urban centres." - AFP
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