KINSHASA (AP/Al Jazeera) – A rebel group in eastern Congo’s Ituri province killed at least 42 people Friday, according to a civil society organization.
Three towns in Djugu territory were attacked by the CODECO militia group, said Dieudonne Lossa, the president of the organization in Banyari Kilo, the area where the attacks took place.
“They burned down several homes. There are also seven people wounded who have not been assisted yet,” Lossa said.
The army confirmed the attack to local media Friday and said it was searching for the perpetrators.
Fighting between CODECO, a loose association of various ethnic Lendu militia groups, and Zaire, a mainly ethnic Hema self-defense group, has been ongoing since 2017 but worsened recently.
CODECO fighters killed at least 32 civilians in February, local officials said. In December, the United Nations said the insurgent group was expanding its areas of control, attacking civilians and members of Congo’s military, and taxing communities in the areas that it holds.
Robert Basiloko, another civil society leader from the area, told AFP he estimated 43 were killed, including five children. “Every day there are deaths,” he said. “We’re tired of it.”
Sources quoted in both Reuters and AFP identified a group of militias called the Cooperative for Development of the Congo, or CODECO, as the suspected culprit in the attacks.
The United Nations reports that violence and insecurity have caused an estimated 1.5 million people to be displaced in Ituri over the past six years.
Since the violence spiked again in December 2017, attacks on civilians have become a near-daily occurrence, according to the UN. Spokesperson Eujin Byun issued a statement on January 24 that its refugee agency, the UNHCR, “is deeply concerned by the escalation of brutal attacks on civilians”.
“More than 200 civilians have been killed in the last six weeks in Ituri in a series of attacks by non-state armed groups, which also destroyed 2,000 houses and closed or demolished 80 schools,” Byun said at the time.
In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a “state of siege” for both Ituri and the neighboring province of North Kivu.
The country has the largest population of internally displaced people on the African continent, with the UN estimating that at least 5.6 million have fled their homes.