AFP
More civilians have been slain in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo two days after the massacre of 36 people by suspected Ugandan rebels, army and civilian sources said Tuesday.
Troops on Monday pursued fighters of the Ugandan rebel Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) "all day long" as part of an offensive against armed groups in northeastern North Kivu province, Colonel Celestin Ngeleka told AFP.
"The ADF (on Monday) killed six civilians and wounded seven others" at Mamove, west of the town of Oicha in the Beni region, where the slaughter occurred on Sunday, said Ngeleka, spokesman for the Congolese military operation.
Three members of parliament from Beni said they had no reports of civilians killed on Monday, but were aware of between three and 13 people slain on Sunday night, after the massacre.
"I have three versions," MP Juma Balikwisha told AFP. "I give most credence to the one that tells of 13 dead," he said, but the army spokesman contradicted these reports.
Fellow MP Daniel Kambale stated that "the military don't want us to give the real figure".
"Provincial authorities and the military apply pressure to prevent the publication of the real tolls to hide the reality and their incompetence," an administrative official said, asking not to be named.
"We are banned from talking to the media on the pretext that this would provoke the population to revolt," the official added.
Beni, a major market town 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, was long largely spared the conflicts that have ravaged much of the province for more than 20 years.
But since the beginning of October, more than 250 people have been slaughtered in Beni and the surrounding territory.
Congolese authorities, military experts and the UN mission in the country, MONUSCO, all blame a spate of massacres on the ADF, a mainly Muslim movement that has been chased out of neighbouring Uganda by the army of President Yoweri Museveni.
ADF forces have been active on DRC territory since 1995.
