Uganda: ADF kill 19 people in remote village of DR Congo

Ugandan rebels, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have killed nineteen people during a night attack in a remote village in Mamove, Beni in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a news report by Daily Monitor.

The leader of the civil society in Mamove, Kinos Kituho said, "the enemies killed people with machetes and axes. At the moment, we have a death toll of 19 civilians, 40 houses burnt down, and several people missing".

The attack happened overnight in the remote village of Baeti, near Mamove, about 20km west of Oicha, the capital of Beni in North Kivu Province.

The UN peace force Monusco, which has been fighting rebels in eastern Congo, also has a base about 6km from the village.

Kituho blamed the Congolese army (FARDC) for failing to defeat the rebels, who have carried out a series of massacres in the region.

The residents, according to Kituho, decried the frequency of attacks in the area, with the latest being the fourth in less than a month that has claimed more than 40 lives.

The ADF, which originated in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel group, is one of more than 100 militias that plague the eastern provinces of the vast Democratic Republic of Congo.

The group has killed nearly 600 civilians since the Congolese army launched a crackdown on it last November, according to an unofficial count.

The massacres are apparently reprisals for the army operation or designed to warn locals against collaborating with the authorities.