More than 80 civilians were killed in an overnight attack by the armed group CODECO in eastern Congo earlier this week, the United Nations peacekeeping mission said Thursday, sharply raising an earlier death toll.
The attack targeted several villages in Djugu territory, Ituri province, late Monday. Local authorities had initially reported at least 51 fatalities, but the revised figure from the UN mission, MONUSCO, underscores the scale of the violence.
Peacekeepers were deployed in response, but MONUSCO said the militants’ use of bladed weapons instead of firearms delayed detection of the assault. By the time peacekeepers arrived, “more than 80 civilians had already been killed, homes were set ablaze, and panic had spread among the population,” the mission said in a statement.
CODECO, one of the many armed groups vying for control over land and resources in eastern Congo, has repeatedly attacked displacement camps, where numbers have swelled amid ongoing violence.
Meanwhile, tensions continue to rise in the region as the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels push south. M23 fighters seized control of Goma, eastern Congo’s largest city, late last month, with UN figures estimating some 3,000 deaths in the days leading up to its capture. Their advance from North Kivu province into South Kivu has raised fears of an escalating humanitarian crisis.
