...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
Locals and sources from the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
(UN) said on Monday that the murderous Moslems armed with machetes, sticks and clubs had raided an area of Ituri province on Saturday.
Dieudonne Malangayi, a local official, said more bodies had been discovered in the bush.
"The civilians who went to look for the bodies of the victims found 16 others in the bush, which makes 30 civilians massacred," he was quoted by AFP as saying.
A UN source also confirmed that at least 30 people had died in the attack.
Augustin Muhindo Musavuli, a village elder who helped look for bodies, said some had their throats slit, others were disemboweled.
| Heart of Darkness stuff... |
s... Lots of people died."David Beyza Katabuka, head of the local Red Thingy, said he could not send a team to bury the bodies. "We fear for our security and we don’t have enough equipment to do the work."
No group immediately grabbed credit for the raid. But the Allied Democratic Forces
...the ADF is one of several murderous Moslem groups in NE Congo. In 2019 the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on them for the usual reasons. They don't appear to be affiliated with al-Qaeda or Islamic State, though ISIS claims their work from time to time — they just like killing infidels....(ADF), a group linked to the Takfiri
...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed...
terrorist group ISIS has been blamed for the latest assault in the region. The group seldom makes public statements.
In late May, more than 50 people were killed in the region in a single day in an attack on two villages.
Since then, the two eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri have been under a state of siege and martial law.
The ADF, which first emerged as a rebel movement in neighboring Uganda in 1996, is considered the deadliest of scores of armed militias that roam the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo.
Congolese authorities and rights groups have accused the ADF of killing hundreds of civilians during a fresh spate of violence in apparent retaliation for army offensives against them since late 2019.
In addition to the ADF, eastern Congo also suffers from inter-communal violence that left thousands of people dead over the past years.
Related:
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2021-09-02 Scores feared missing after ambush in eastern Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2021-09-01 11 children abducted by presumed Islamist militants in DR Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2021-08-30 Suspected militants kill 19 in eastern Congo village
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2021-09-02 Scores feared missing after ambush in eastern Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2021-09-01 11 children abducted by presumed Islamist militants in DR Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2021-08-30 Suspected militants kill 19 in eastern Congo village