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The army says its soldiers have gained the upper hand over the ADF following a massacre of civilians in eastern DR Congo.
The army said it had lost two soldiers but killed at least 14 militiamen by ousting them from a village in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo following another massacre of civilians.
On Friday, DRC troops took over the ADF militias in the village of Loselose and “drove them out after three days of occupation and intense fighting,” said Lt. Antony Mualushayi, spokesperson for the army in the Beni region, to the AFP news agency.
“The enemy death toll is 14 bodies seen, including two white men who are probably Arabs. Two hero soldiers fell on the field of honor, ”the officer said earlier in a statement on Saturday.
The village of Loselose, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Beni, and the entire Ruwenzori area are known for their cocoa plantations and banana plantations. Harvesting started in the region in November.
Regional officials said on Friday that ADF militiamen massacred at least 25 civilians when they caught them in their fields on New Year’s Eve near the village of Tingwe.
The ADF, which emerged in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel group, is one of dozens of militias present in the eastern provinces of the vast DRC.
He is blamed for the deaths of around 800 civilians over the past year in North Kivu province, which borders Uganda.
The group earns money mainly from timber trafficking and DRC officials suspect some soldiers of being complicit in its violent raids.
The ADF have never claimed responsibility for attacks. But since April 2019, several of his attacks have been claimed by the so-called Central Africa Province of the Islamic State, without providing proof.
The United Nations said in July that the group’s attacks could constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
A mid-term report of December 23 from a group of UN experts which addressed the security situation in the region “characterized by pockets of intense violence”.
The report revealed that in North Kivu, the armed forces “dispersed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) into several mobile groups and extended the ADF area of ​​operations”.
On October 30, 2019, the army launched a large-scale operation against ADF strongholds, claiming to have “neutralized” five of the group’s leaders.
But that did not prevent an upsurge in violence in the first half of 2020, with UN data showing 1,315 deaths compared to 416 in the first half of 2019.
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