Dozens killed in Democratic Republic of the Congo village attacks
“We are tired of it,” say residents facing ongoing violence in Ituri province, near the border with Uganda.
Dozens of civilians were killed as suspected armed groups raided villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to local lawyers and news reports.
The attacks took place on Friday in Ituri province, an area along the country’s northeastern border with Uganda, which has seen regular systematic attacks on communities since 2017.
Charite Banza, the head of local civil society, told Reuters news agency Friday’s attack killed about 30 people, “both women and men”.
“They burned down several houses and looted property,” Banza explained.
Other sources told the AFP news agency that the death toll exceeded 40. A regional administrator named Innocent Matukadala told the news outlet that 36 bodies had been found in the town of Kilo Etat, plus another eight in Matete and more in Itendy.
Robert Basiloko, another civil society leader from the area, told AFP he estimated 43 people were killed, including five children. “There are deaths every day,” he said. “We’re fed up.”
Sources quoted in both Reuters and AFP identified a militia group called the Cooperative for Development of the Congo, or CODECO, as the suspected perpetrator of the attacks.
The United Nations reports that an estimated 1.5 million people have been displaced in Ituri over the past six years due to violence and insecurity.
The conflict stems in part from ongoing tensions between the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups, as well as a desire to gain control of Ituri’s natural resources, including gold and oil deposits. The conflict goes back decades, with violence becoming particularly intense in the 1990s and 2000s.
Since violence peaked again in December 2017, attacks on civilians have become an almost daily occurrence, according to the UN. Spokesman Eujin Byun issued a statement on January 24 that his refugee agency, the UNHCR, is “deeply concerned about the escalation of brutal attacks against civilians”.
“More than 200 civilians have been killed in the past six weeks in Ituri in a series of attacks by non-state armed groups, which also destroyed 2,000 homes and closed or demolished 80 schools,” Byun said at the time.
In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo declared “martial law” for both Ituri and the neighboring province of North Kivu.
The country has the largest internally displaced population on the African continent, with the UN estimated that at least 5.6 million people have fled their homes.
According to the UN, the attacks have spread from villages to shelters for internally displaced persons. Plaine Savo camp has been repeatedly attacked by armed groups, including CODECO, killing families and burning shelters to the ground.