Civilians, Soldiers Die Following 3 Days Of Fighting In Eastern DR Congo

A total of sixteen persons, including two soldiers, have been killed in the northeast and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during three days of attacks by armed groups beginning Friday, August 26, 2022.

“We have just lost a soldier this Sunday, August 28, 2022, morning who was killed during an attack on our position in the north entrance of Butembo town by Mai-Mai militia,” a senior military officer requesting anonymity told HumAngle. He added that two of the assailants were also killed.

Prince Kaleta, president of the civil society of Lodjo to the northeast of Ituri province on Sunday, August 28, 2022, said, “six gold diggers were killed and decapitated by rebels of the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO)”.

In North Kivu, “during the night of Saturday, August 27, 2022, three civilians were killed in an attack by Allied Democratic Forces (ADF),” revealed Flavien Kakule, the chief of a locality in the Bashu chiefdom in Beni territory.

Soldiers of the DR Congo armed forces, FARDC and those of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) have been clashing with March 23 (M23) rebels in this zone since November last year. The M23 rebels say they are fighting to force the DR Congo government to respect the terms of a demobilisation and reinsertion accord signed between them and the government.

“Finally, a soldier was killed, actually lynched, by an angry mob. The soldier had just killed a civilian in Kimoka,” Colonel Philemon Kakule, commander of the Sake regiment of the FARDC in North Kivu, revealed.

At least three women were also killed during a new attack attributed to ADF rebels early Saturday in Kavasewa village, in the Bashu chiefdom of Beni territory in North Kivu. According to civil society sources, 28 houses, including shops and pharmacies, were burnt down.

The attack began around 5 a.m., and the assailants first attacked a military position before taking on the civilian population.

Paluku Rukanda, president of the Kavasewa civil society, said the women were killed with cutlasses while on their farms, and one other was killed while on her way to the farm.

Before leaving the village, the rebels also looted several properties from the local population, including cattle.

This was the first attack attributed to the Ugandan rebels near the town of Butembo after the escape of over eight hundred prisoners from the Kakwangura prison.

Some escaped prisoners have already been forcefully recruited into the ADF to reinforce their numbers and help them continue their atrocities in the zone.