DRC: “dozens of deaths” in attacks against villages and a camp of displaced in Ituri

According to the Kivu safe barometer, the attackers are CODECO militiamen, a group consisting of members of the learned community.

Le Monde with AFP

Dozens, or even a hundred people were killed on the night of Sunday 21 to Monday, November 22 in village attacks and a site of displaced in Ituri, in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A senior military source that has requested the anonymity indicated that these attacks, in the territory of Djugu, had done “dozens of deaths”, the experts of the secure barometer of the Kivu (KST) encrypting on their side “At least 107” the number of corps found.

“The vast majority of the dead are civilians,” said KST, adding that these attacks had been conducted by militia of the Congo’s development cooperative (CODECO), a group consisting of members of the Lendu . The members of the rival community, the Hema, were the majority in the displaced camp of Drodro village, indicated the AFP the same source. “The enemy went so far as a camp of displaced. It constitutes a crime of war and a crime against humanity,” lamented the lieutenant Jules Ngongo, spokesman of the army in Ituri.

A source of the UN mission in the DRC, the MONUSCO, indicated to AFP that 16,000 displaced from Drodro camp as well as village inhabitants who fleeing violence were conducted in an IDP camp. Neighbor, in Roe, near a temporary basis of blue helmets, where 21,000 other displaced are already hosted.

The Armed Codeco group claims to defend the interests of the lendure community in Ituri, an auriferous province marked by strong antagonisms between ethnic groups. This group has split into several rival factions. It is at the advent of this militia, at the end of 2017, that the province has plunged into a cycle of violence. The Ituri and the neighboring province of North Kivu have been placed since 6 May under state of siege, an exceptional measure to combat armed groups. Civil authorities have been replaced by army and police officers.

/Media reports.