At least 12 people have been killed in a plot in eastern DR Congo | Stories

An official in Ituri province said six children, two women, were killed when CODECO militants attacked Drodro village.

Gunmen have killed at least 12 people in an attack on civilians displaced in the eastern region of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a military spokesman said.

Fighters from the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO) stormed the village of Drodro on Sunday night, killing six children, four men and two women, Jules Ngongo, a spokesman for the Ituri military government, told Reuters.

Other local groups say the death toll is much higher.

CODECO attacks have killed hundreds of civilians in Djugu district in Ituri district since 2017 and forced thousands of people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

The CODECO fighters are mainly from the Lendu peasant group, which has been fighting the Hema pastors.

“Their aim was to attack the refugees in Drodro,” Ngongo said.

A priest and co-ordinator of Caritas Catholic Church in Ituri, Ngabu Lidja Chrysante, said his colleagues on the ground had seen the bodies of 35 people killed in the attack, which was also directed at the church.

According to the Kivu Security Tracker from the US, which reports incidents of violence in the DRC, 107 bodies have been found in Drodro and surrounding villages.

“Most of the dead are civilians,” the group said.

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United Nations Congolese peacekeeping force spokesman Mathias Gilman says at least 16,000 people have fled the violence and are hiding in the safe haven.

CODECO spokesman Patrick Basa denied that the group had killed civilians. He told Reuters that his troops had fought in Drodro with the Hema army but said civilians had already fled the area.

Tensions between the Lendu and Hema people from 1999 to 2007 resulted in the deaths of nearly 50,000 people in one bloody conflict in the eastern DRC.

Neighboring governments in North Kivu and Ituri have been under siege since May 6, a special crackdown on militias such as CODECO – and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – as government officials have been replaced by the military and police. .

The ADF, which the United States calls the “terrorist group”, is one of many armed groups operating in the eastern DRC where there is high salinity.

In August, the group set fire to and killed 19 civilians in the Beni region of northern Kivu, according to government officials.