11 die in DR Congo’s ‘Death Triangle’

BENI, DR Congo: Ten civilians and a soldier were killed overnight in eastern DR Congo in an attack blamed on rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a local official said on Monday. The attack occurred in an area of North Kivu province near neighbouring Uganda dubbed the “Triangle of Death” where the ADF has killed 570 civilians since the army launched a crackdown against them in November last year, according to experts. The militia, which originated in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel group, is one of more than 100 armed groups that trouble the eastern provinces of the vast Democratic Republic of Congo.

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

Beni administrator Donat Kibwana told AFP that the assailants had reached within 400 metres (yards) of a government office in the town of Mbau when they launched the attack. “The enemy are the ADF,” he said, adding that another three people were wounded and several more went missing. Mbau civil society leader Omar Kalikia said eight of those killed were women, adding that it was a provisional toll. He told AFP that the attack began around 8:30 pm and lasted two and a half hours, with three homes torched and “all the property taken away” including goats.