Sharjah 24 – AFP: Twelve civilians and 38 rebels have died in four days of fighting in northeast DR Congo, where the armed forces are carrying out a crackdown on militias, military and local sources said on Monday.
The clashes have taken place in Ituri province, where in separate conflicts, the army is battling the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) -- a group with suspected links to the Daesh -- and an ethnic-based militia called CODECO.
On Thursday, nine civilians in the Mambembe area were "massacred" by the ADF, and three more were killed in an attack on Saturday, the area's chief, Janvier Musoki Kinyongo, told AFP.
"People have fled my area. ADF rebels are moving about the region," he said.
In another part of Ituri, soldiers killed seven ADF operatives and captured one in an offensive launched on Highway 4, about 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of provincial capital Bunia, army spokesman Jules Ngongo said.
Separately, the army said it had carried out a "helicopter-backed operation" against CODECO in Ituri's territory of Djugi.
"Thirty-one CODECO militia elements (were) neutralised and several were wounded, it said.
Fighting between the two groups flared between 1999 and 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives before being quelled by a European Union peacekeeping force, Artemis.
Violence then resumed in 2017, blamed on the emergence of CODECO.
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