Six killed in eastern DR Congo attack

Six people were killed, including a woman who was burned alive, during an attack blamed on the regional militia group ADF in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, sources said Saturday.

The Allied Democratic Forces were believed to have carried out the overnight attack on a road near the border with Uganda, where the group was founded.

“ADF fighters attacked Kinyatsi, a village near the Virunga national park,” said Donat Kibuana, local administrator for the Beni territory in North Kivu province.

“We have counted six people killed, including a woman who was burned alive in her home,” he told AFP.

“Youths are angry with the security forces,” the official added, without giving a reason.

A humanitarian source who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “The toll of six dead is a provisional one.”

The source added that “angry inhabitants of the villages of Lume and Kinyatsi are asking themselves questions about the attackers’ identity, and have called on military authorities to identify which units operate in the zone.”

A military spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Kinyatsi lies on a key road between Beni and Kasindi that supplies the area and is used to export agricultural produce. This week, 39 people have been killed on it despite the deployment of DR Congo and UN troops.

On Friday, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a monitoring organisation that has experts in the region, said at least 1,228 civilians have been killed in the Beni territory since November 2019 during attacks attributed to the ADF.