Rebels kill 10 in eastern Congo attacks

Oct 06, 2011

BUKAVU - Rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo killed 10 people in two separate attacks on vehicles travelling in the province of South Kivu this week, the local government said on Thursday.

Congo's east remains plagued by armed groups eight years after a war that left around five million people dead -- a factor that could weigh on President Joseph Kabila's bid for re-election in a Nov. 27 vote.

Seven people were killed and three injured on Tuesday in an attack on a vehicle owned by a local NGO, Eben Ezer, on a road south of the town of Baraka near Lake Tanganyika, according to local administrator Selestin Kalume Mwanshima.

The same armed group killed three more people when a motorbike was attacked on the same day, Kalume said, blaming the killings on a Congolese rebel band known as Mai Mai Yakatumba.

"We are in the process of taking steps to secure the area. It's each day that Yakatumba and its allies, the FNL and FDLR attack civilian vehicles, boats, even entire villages. This must stop," Kalume told Reuters by telephone.

FNL is a Burundian rebel group based in Congo that was blamed for last month's attack on a bar in Burundi in which more than 30 people were killed. The FDLR is a Rwandan rebel group operating in Congo and has carried out numerous atrocities against civilians, including mass rapes.

Fighting in eastern Congo is often characterised by shifting short-term alliances between different armed groups keen to use instability to control land and resources.

These latest attacks underscore the inability of joint operations by UN peacekeepers and the Congolese army so far to protect civilians from the rebel groups. Kabila's government has vowed to bring the armed groups to heel.

In a speech to launch his re-election bid last month, Kabila said there were "no more fires in the east, only embers."