At least 21, including women and baby, killed in Congo's east

Comment:  An example of how not all of Eastern Congo's problems are home grown.


The killings highlighted the challenges still facing Congo's army and U.N. forces attempting to pacify Congo's mineral-rich east, which has remained a lawless patchwork of rebel strongholds and militia fiefdoms for nearly two decades.

U.N.-backed government forces won a rare victory last month against the Tutsi-dominated M23 rebels, the region's most serious uprising in years.

But dozens of armed groups still hold ground in the rugged mountains along Congo's eastern border with Rwanda and Uganda.

Jaribu Muliwavyo, a member of North Kivu's provincial assembly from Beni, told Reuters he believed the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group that emerged in the 1990s in opposition to the Ugandan government, were behind the attack.

The Ugandan government says the group, also known by the acronym ADF-NALU, is allied to elements of Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab movement.

"ADF-NALU has been moving for the last two or three weeks and this locality was in their route. ADF-NALU controls this area," Muliwavyo told Reuters by telephone. "It is terrorism, pure and simple."
Continue