At least 20 civilians killed in attack in eastern Congo

A resident of the attacked village and an activist said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were behind the killings.

At least 20 civilians have been killed in an attack in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Reuters news agency has reported. A resident of the attacked village and an activist said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were behind the killings.
Acvording to the local activist and a local resident, Claude Kalinde who blamed the bloodshed on th (ADF) armed group.The assailants struck at about 9 pm, wielding machetes and burning houses.
The attack comes months after DRC and Ugandan troops launched a joint operation against the ADF, which has killed thousands of civilians in the region since 2013.
Since the operation began in late November, the group has continued to attack and kill civilians. In December, at least 16 people were killed in an attack suspected to have been carried out by the group in the rural commune of Mangina.
The ADF was founded in Uganda in 1995. It later moved to the DRC where it is among dozens of armed groups seeking control over territory and mineral resources in the east of the country. Despite its pledged allegiance to ISIL (ISIS) in 2019, UN researchers have not found any evidence that the group controls the ADF.
Ugandan forces have launched air and artillery raids in the DRC since the beginning of the joint operation, pledging to stay in the neighbouring country for as long as necessary to defeat the ADF but then, the congolese, remain wary after Uganda plundered the country’s resources during the DRC’s second civil war that raved from 1998 to 2003.