BUNIA (DR Congo), June 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nine civilians, five of them children, were killed late Tuesday in the eastern DR Congo province of Ituri, where some 1,000 civilians have been massacred since late 2017, local sources said.
The killing was the latest attributed to an ethnic militia called CODECO, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, in the restive province.
They raided the village of Lenga in Djugu territory where they “killed nine civilians and wounded another,” Charite Banza, the local civil society president, said.
Among those killed were “three men, a woman and five children under the age of 13,” said community leader Richard Dhedda Kondo.
At least 150 houses were burned down and some residents fled after the dead were buried, he said.
Army spokesman Jules Ngongo confirmed the attack.
Ituri is one of several provinces gripped by militia violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a country the size of continental western Europe.
The army said it had killed “eight CODECO militiamen and made a series of arrests” including that of “a commander”.
Between October 2019 and April 2020, “at least 296 people were killed, 151 others wounded and 38 people raped, including many women and children” in Ituri, according to the United Nations.
In January, the UN estimated that 701 people have been killed since December 2017.
“These acts could constitute crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court,” ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda warned last week.
CODECO claims to defend the interests of the Lendu ethnic group, who are predominantly farmers and clash repeatedly with the Hema community of traders and herders.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in Hema-Lendu fighting between 1999 and 2003 and violence resumed for unclear reasons at the end of 2017.
