DR Congo: Allied Democratic Forces kill 19 civilians in restive eastern region

Allied Democratic Forces militia (ADF) has killed 19 civilians in the restive eastern DR Congo, according to a news report by Daily Monitor.

Nine people were kidnapped on Friday by the Allied Democratic Forces militia (ADF), and their bodies were found in the province of North Kivu, which borders Rwanda, regional administrator Donat Kibwana said, adding that their burials were underway.

The ADF has been blamed for killing around 500 people in retaliation for an army crackdown on their bases in the forests around the Beni region.

In the neighboring Ituri region, ADF fighters attacked the village of Bukaka late Saturday and killed 10 civilians, local official Bananilao Tchabi told AFP. 

Civil society leader Raphael Bon Benogo has said that the victims were five men, three women, and two children.

"Some were killed with machetes and others with firearms," he said.

In another incident on Saturday in Fizi, in South Kivu province, gunmen from a "coalition of armed groups" attacked an army unit, killing two soldiers, a local army spokesman said.

The Allied Democratic Forces is an Islamist rebel group in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, considered a terrorist organization by the Ugandan government.  It was originally based in western Uganda but has expanded into the neighboring, Democratic Republic of Congo.