Ten dead in an attack attributed to a new militia in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

8 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –

Ten people have been savagely murdered in an attack carried out by a new armed group identified as the Shishikara in the Masisi region, in the Congolese province of North Kivu, in the east of the country.

Civil society sources quoted by the Radio Okapi station have reported the massacre, apparently perpetrated more than two weeks ago. They have also denounced that this new militia has perpetrated numerous attacks against the civilian population of Boabo and Banyungu with total impunity. They also attack cattle from farms in the region.

A civil society official from Masisi, Thélésphore Mitondeke, has assured that he has already alerted the competent civil and military authorities of these “serious abuses committed daily by these combatants”.

However, a spokesman for the provincial government, Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Ndjike Kaiko, has assured Radio Okapi that he is unaware of the existence of this new militia, for which reason he has promised to verify this information.

On the other hand, a man in his 20s died this Sunday in an attack attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in Wangatsu, Eringeti municipality, in Beni territory, also in North Kivu. Two other people have been seriously injured, according to the Congolese news portal Actualité, citing a provincial government spokesman.

The ADF militiamen burst into Wangatsu at 8:00 a.m. this Sunday and shot the victim before setting fire to his home. They also took cattle before fleeing the area.

The ADF, a Ugandan group created in the 1990s that was particularly active in the eastern DRC and accused of killing hundreds of civilians in this part of the country, may be trying to resume operations in Uganda, from where it withdrew in 2003. after a series of military operations that drastically reduced its ability to carry out attacks in the country.

The group suffered a split in 2019 after Musa Baluku — sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States — swore allegiance to the jihadist group Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCA), under whose banner it has operated since then. The increase in their attacks and the claim of an attack in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, led both countries to launch joint operations in the eastern DRC.