Four dead in DRC rebel raids

2018-09-29 19:30
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Two soldiers and two women died overnight in attacks in Democratic Republic of Congo's war-torn North Kivu province, the army and a local official said on Saturday.

Rwandan Hutu rebels attacked an army position at Mutabo killing the Congolese soldiers, local military spokesperson Major Guillaume Djike told AFP.

And the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a militia rooted in Ugandan Islamism that has killed hundreds of people since 2014, was blamed for a raid on Mukoko village where two women died and hostages were taken, a local administrator said.

Witnesses said a group of people had gathered in Beni town when the women's bodies were brought in but police dispersed them to head off any protests.

"They killed two women," Beni administrator Donat Kibwana told AFP, saying it was not immediately clear how many people had been kidnapped by the militia.

Last week, 14 civilians and four soldiers were killed during an ADF raid in the centre of Beni.

The army has accused a coalition of foreigners from neighbouring countries of being behind the repeated raids in eastern DRC and vowed to wipe them out.

Local anger has surged with the latest attacks, directed at repeated failures by the authorities to curb the violence.

The provinces of North and South Kivu lie in a border region that has been prey to war and lower-level conflict since 1994.

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