In the second such attack in as many days, armed rebels killed fifteen people on Sunday in the volatile Ituri region in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to local reports.
According to the reports, members of the rival Hema tribe were once more the target of the CODECO (Cooperative for the Development of the Congo) militia, which asserts that it is defending the rights of the Lendu ethnic group.
On Saturday afternoon, CODECO members ambushed drivers on a route close to the village of Tali, stopping 15 individuals, one of whom was a lady, according to Jules Tsuba, a civil society leader in the nearby town of Djugu.
Some victims “had their throats cut, others were shot dead,” he alleged, after the militiamen bound and stripped them before murdering them.
A humanitarian source claims that “the victims’ bodies bear the marks of torture.”
The administrator of the region, Ruphin Mapela, verified the death toll of 15 and stated that the attack occurred following months of calm.
Following talks in Nairobi last year, a number of armed factions in the Congo signed a peace agreement, including CODECO. The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to up to 120 armed factions, according to the UN.
Thousands of South African soldiers have been sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to battle armed rebel groups in the east as part of a mission to lessen bloodshed in the region.
