By Le Figaro with AFP
Published on 03/26/2023 at 23:36
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A woman in a refugee camp in Bunia who had her hands amputated by Codeco militias. PAUL LOGERIE / Portal
Seventeen people taken hostage the day before in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo were executed by community militia Codeco (Cooperative for the Development of Congo) on Sunday March 26, we learned from local sources.
On Saturday, in the Djugu area, some 45 km north of Bunia (Ituri province), at least “seventeen people were taken hostage by Codeco militiamen between the villages of Bambu and Kobu,” Banguneni Gbalande, head of the Akongo, told AFP – Nyali community where the facts took place. These people were in two vehicles traveling from Bunia, the provincial capital, to the mining town of Mongbwalu when their convoy was ambushed, he explained.
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On Sunday, those hostages were “executed in the village of Pechi, the stronghold of Codeco,” he said, implying that he had been “alarmed by the families of some of the Mongbwalu victims.” The “hostages died, they were executed by Codeco militiamen,” Toko Kagbanese, another local traditional chief, confirmed to AFP. A Bambu resident told AFP that the kidnapping happened after the deaths of three Codeco militiamen who were ambushed in the town by a rival militia. Among the hostages was a pregnant woman who declined to be identified for security reasons, the source said.
thousands dead
Since the end of 2022, there have been dozens of deaths almost every week in the gold-rich province of Ituri. More than thirty people, including many women and children, were massacred in several villages on March 18. The Codeco militiamen were blamed for this killing. The Codeco is a militia of several thousand who claim to protect the Lendu tribe against a rival tribe, the Hema, defended by another militia, the “Zaire”.
After a decade of lull, the deadly conflict in Ituri between Hema and Lendu resumed in late 2017, causing the displacement of more than one and a half million people and the deaths of thousands of civilians. The previous conflict between vigilante groups left thousands dead between 1999 and 2003, until a European force, Operation Artemis, under French command, intervened.