_______________

Beni, DR Congo | AFP

Between 10 and 15 civilians were killed in weekend attacks in the Beni region in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in new attacks blamed on ADF rebels affiliated with Islamic State, local sources said on Sunday.

"It is urgent that the authorities put an end to this barbarity," Pepin Kavota, a civil society leader in Beni, a town in the north of North Kivu province particularly hit by Allied Democratic Forces violence, told AFP. Kavota added most of the victims were decapitated.

"For a month our neighbourhood has been the victim of repeated ADF attacks," said Antoine Kambale, an official in the Mulekera town northwest of Beni, told AFP.

Kambale said 14 civilians were killed Friday in several places in the neighbourhood, adding that a new attack targeted another on the night of Saturday to Sunday, leaving two more dead - a woman and a police officer.

He added that the assailants attacked and set fire to a health centre from which they looted medical supplies in an incident similar to one two weeks ago in another Beni commune, Mangina, which saw 10 people killed.

Mulekera mayor Colonel Ngongo Mayanga gave a provisional death toll from the latest attacks at more than 10 civilians.

"For now, we are at the stage of collecting bodies," he said, adding that "the army are deploying in large numbers to counter the threat."

The ADF, originally mainly Muslim Ugandan rebels, have established a presence over the three decades in eastern DRC, killing thousands of civilians.

They pledged allegiance in 2019 to ISIS, which portrays them as its central African incarnation. The group is also accused of recent attacks on Ugandan soil. At the end of 2021, Kampala and Kinshasa launched a joint military operation against them in a so far unsuccessful attempt to defeat the group.