Militia Attack Kills At Least 69 In DR Congo
A militia attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province has killed at least 69 people, local and security sources told AFP on Saturday, with the full scale of the killings only emerging days after the assault due to an ongoing security lockdown in the affected area.
Armed men affiliated with the Codeco militia carried out attacks in several villages on April 28, following an earlier assault by another armed group, the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CRP), on positions held by the Congolese army near the locality of Pimbo.
The continued presence of Codeco fighters in the zone delayed the recovery of bodies for several days.
Civil society leader Dieudonne Losa told AFP that more than 70 people had been killed, while two security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed a toll of at least 69, including 19 militia members and soldiers. Only 25 bodies had been buried as of Saturday, with several sets of remains yet to be recovered.
A humanitarian source described bodies strewn on the ground near the village of Bassa, one of the areas targeted.
The UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, warned on Saturday of a deadly wave of attacks targeting civilians in the country’s restive east, saying dozens of civilians had been killed in recent days across the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu.
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The Codeco militia claims to defend the rights of the mainly farming Lendu community against the mainly pastoral Hema community, while the CRP says it fights for the Hema.
They are just two of several armed groups active in the area, which also include the Allied Democratic Forces, a group formed by former Ugandan rebels that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
Since early 2025, Ituri has seen a resurgence of the CRP, a group founded by convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, who was found guilty in 2012 by the International Criminal Court for recruiting child soldiers and released in 2020 after completing his sentence.
Eastern DRC has been a battleground for various armed groups for more than three decades, with the province of Ituri plunged into a humanitarian crisis affecting nearly one million internally displaced people, according to the United Nations.