DRC: 36 dead overnight, slain with machetes and axes

Overnight in the Democratic Republic of Congo 36 people were killed with machetes and axes, despite the efforts of the national army and UN peacekeepers to halt the series of massacres attributed to Ugandan rebels. Between Saturday to Sunday in the eastern DRC, deaths attributed to the rebel militants since October rose to over 250.

The attacks took place on the edge of the city Oicha, about 30 kilometers northeast of Beni city in the province of North Kivu and in two nearby villages, Manzanzaba and Mulobiya. The assailants killed men, women and children.

The attackers killed 36 people, injured two, and kidnapped two, according to Jean-Baptiste Kamabu, head of the city Oicha and Colonel Célestin Ngeleka, spokesman for the DRC’s Congolese operation against the armed groups in the north of North Kivu. 

According to Kamabu, the attack took place between 20:00 and 01:00 local time, while the area is under night curfew.

The DRC’s Sokola 1 operation has reportedly dislodged the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) from most of their strongholds in the foothills of the over 5,000 meter tall Ruwenzori massif on the border between Congo and Uganda, but the mission stopped abruptly in late August with the death of the general in command. Sokola 1 was then relaunched in November after the massacres began in Beni territory.

None of the massacres committed since October in the Beni region have been claimed by the militants, and although most authorities believe they are responsible, what goal the ADF has in perpetrating the killings is considered to be unclear. The DRC government, the UN and experts have have stated that they see in the killings a continuation of the killings perpetrated by Muslim rebels in the eastern DRC since 1995 and opposed to President Yoweri Museveni.

In a statement, the head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), Martin Kobler condemned the violence of the night.

“The proliferation of joint actions by MONUSCO-FARDC is of vital urgency, and I call on all partners to strengthen cooperation to enable more immediate interventions and increase preventive patrols,” Kobler said, addressing both the staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and the command of the military forces for MONUSCO.

A recent report by a parliamentary fact-finding mission sent to the region stated that the situation was a “crisis of confidence between the security services, the political and administrative authorities and the population.”

The ADF have not always been hostile to the local population, according to several experts, who have noted that the ADF have longstanding relationships with the locals due to years of commercial and matrimonial ties. The rebels derive their resources from trade with the locals, including various trafficking activities, especially in wood.

By Dan Jackson

DRC: 36 dead overnight, slain with machetes and axes