Beni, March 10th, 2023 (CPA)-At least 36 dead and several wounded, victims of the ADF, were recorded on Wednesday in Mukondi, in the chiefdom of Bashu, Beni territory (Ituri), in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the CPA learnt on Thursday from a military source.
At least « 36 civilians were brutally killed by ADF MTM terrorists on Wednesday evening in the Bashu chiefdom, not to mention the wounded and missing persons and an entire village burnt down, » the spokesman for the Sokola1 Grand Nord operations, Captain Antony Mwalushay, announced on Thursday.
« The army is affected by this macabre carnage of the ADF against innocent civilians, » the captain said.
Local sources, contacted by CPA on Thursday evening, said the death toll has been revised upwards to 45, including 13 children.
According to Captain Mwalushay, these ADF/MTN terrorists had come to avenge twenty-two of their collaborators captured by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in this chiefdom of Bashu where, in particular, their shops and a pharmacy that supplied them for the manufacture of homemade bombs were seized.
« We have deployed a special force to hunt down residual ADF groups that are hurting the population, » said Captain Antony Mwalushay.
« The time for distraction is over, we are asking the population to sound the alarm in due course, with a view to wiping out this movement and its collaborators who are endangering the lives of their compatriots by turning this war into a business, » he said, promising to pursue the ADF, in order to free the people kidnapped during their operations.
Voter registration kit taken away in Batuhe
On Wednesday night, an unidentified Mai Mai group took away a voter registration kit from a school in Butuhe, Bashu chiefdom, in the western part of Beni territory.
« On Wednesday, March 8th, 2023, a group of unidentified Mai Mai raided and attacked at around 11pm a voter registration centre located in the Twendeleye primary school in the town of Butuhe, chief town of the Malio group, Beni territory. They injured two police officers who were committed to the security of this centre before taking away an electoral kit, » the same spokesman said on Thursday.
The captain added that a military reinforcement has been dispatched to hunt down these outlaws.
He added: « The military should be urgently deployed in Lusasa and Pabuka to prevent the ADF from reaching the Butembo-Beni road and cut off traffic on this axis, the only link between these two entities where thousands of displaced people from Beni in North Kivu, Irumu and Mambassa in Ituri are concentrated », he concluded.
