Islamist militants had on Sunday evening, tied up about 19 villagers and slaughtered them with machetes and other weapons in a raid in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a civil society leader, Maurice Mabele Musaidi.
Other villagers had fled the massacre but they may have drowned as they tried to cross the Lamia river into Uganda, Maurice Mabele Musaidi had informed Reuters.
“There are still people missing,” Musaidi had said.
The civil society leader and a spokesperson for the Congolese army had said that the attack in Beni territory’s Watalinga chiefdom was enforced by the Allied Democratic Forces, ADF, an armed group based in eastern Congo that has vowed allegiance to the Islamic State.
The ADF formed in Uganda before crossing over the border in the 1990s and has been criticised for thousands of killings in the last decade.
Congo’s army has also said that it killed about six of the militants that night, without going into details about the operation.
Army spokesperson, Antony Mualushayi, has estimated the civilian death toll to be at 11, although he said that the figure was conditional.
