A militia attack on an IDP camp in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic Congo left 46 dead, half of them were children.
Richard Dheda, an official of the local administration at Djegu territory of Ituri province, told that a militia group involved in ethnic killing attacked the Lala camp, located 5km (3 miles) from Bule, the site of a United Nations peacekeeping base overnight Sunday to Monday killing 46 people.
Kivu security tracker (KST), a group of observers based in East of DCR also counted the death toll at Lala camp to 46. Desire Maldora, a community leader provided the same number adding that 23 of them were children. Maldora told AFP “They began to fire shots, many people were burned to death in their homes, others were killed by machete.”
The attack was carried out by the militants belonging to a coalition of militia groups Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO). CODECO claims to protect the Lendu community from another ethnic group, the Hema, as well as the DRC’s army.
Richard Dheda said that the death toll is provisional because the search for victims is in progress.
Maki Lombe, a witness, also told the Reuters news agency he had seen “more than 40 bodies” lying on the ground. He survived by fleeing during the night, he said.
Charite Banza, head of a local civil rights group told Reuters that the victims will be buried in a mass grave. He added the attack happened a few days after a dialogue between armed groups in Ituri.“No reason for the bloody attack has yet been given,” Banza added.
After a decade of peace, the conflict between Hema and Lendu communities began in 2017, resulting in thousands of deaths and forcing more than a million people from their homes. In the latest wave of violence around 70 thousand displaced people arrived in Bule during April and May 2023.
Most of Eastern DRC is a hotspot for violence a bequest of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s. The country has the largest population of IDPs in Africa, with the UN estimating at least 5.6 million have fled their homes due to fighting.
