Ten civilians were killed overnight in a flashpoint area in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in an attack by suspected Ugandan rebels, an official said Monday.
The attack was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia, said Jonas Kibwana, administrator of the Beni region in North Kivu province.
“The ADF attacked the town of Mbau… 10 civilians were shot dead and two others were wounded,” Kibwana told AFP, giving a toll confirmed separately by sources in the armed forces and civil society.
Eastern DRC has been wracked by violence since the mid-1990s. The ADF — created by Muslim radicals to oppose the rule of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni — is one of a number of armed groups fighting over the region’s rich mineral resources.
It stands accused of killing hundreds of civilians over the years and of carrying out a deadly attack on UN troops in Beni last December that left 15 peacekeepers dead.
