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DRCONGO-UNREST
Twenty civilians killed in northeast DR Congo: officials
KINSHASA, May 17, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Women and children were among at
least 20 civilians murdered in northeastern DR Congo’s Ituri province
overnight Saturday-Sunday, local officials told AFP.
“We have 20 people killed for now and 17 wounded, some of them
admitted to hospital,” Adel Alingi, a Djugu territory administrator,
told AFP, adding that a notorious regional milita was suspected of
carrying out the latest massacre in the Democratic Republic.
Another local official said there had been 22 killed.
Pilo Mulindro, a tribal chief, told AFP by telephone that “the
victims are of all ages, children, youths, women and old men, killed
by machete, by knife or by firearm”.
Local authorities blamed the Cooperative for the Development of
Congo (Codeco) for the massacre, one of dozens of armed groups spread
across the conflict-wracked country.
Codeco is accused of the murder of hundreds of civilians this year alone.
Its members are mainly drawn from the Lendu ethnic group, who are
predominantly farmers, and clash repeatedly with the Hema community of
traders and herders in Ituri — a region rich in gold and oil.
BSS/AFP/MRU/1940hrs