BUNIA: Fighters from the notorious Zaire militia killed 22 villagers and wounded 16 more attending a wake in Ituri province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said on Saturday.

Militiamen entered the village of Damas in the Mabendi area of Ituri’s Djugu territory at around 11 pm on Friday night and killed 22 people, according to Congolese army spokesman Lieutenant Jules Ngongo.

“We condemn this attack,” he said, adding that soldiers are currently pursuing the militants.

The Zaire militia describes itself as a self-defence group whose mission is to protect members of the Hema community against attacks from the CODECO militia representing the rival Lendu community.

The Lendu and Hema communities have a long-standing feud that led to thousands of deaths between 1999 and 2003 before intervention by a European peacekeeping force. Violence resumed in gold-rich Ituri in 2017, which has been blamed on the emergence of the CODECO.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2022