Victims buried after IS-linked attack in DR Congo

In the latest overnight assaults on Monday, the ADF killed at least 71 people and left others wounded in the village of Ntoyo, in North Kivu. At the same time, the group attacked Fotodu, a settlement around 125 kilometres (75 miles) away in the same province, local and security sources told AFP on Wednesday, giving a toll of 18.

The mostly Muslim militia's recent rash of deadly raids shattered several months of relative calm in the mineral-rich region, which has been a battleground between various armed groups, backed at times by foreign powers, for more than 30 years.

Hours before Wednesday's hurriedly organised funeral for some of the victims, Ntoyo was almost emptied of its inhabitants, AFP journalists reported.

Several bodies were still lying on the ground while local youths dug graves under the watch of Congolese military personnel.

Twenty-five bodies were buried in the afternoon.

Relatives accused the authorities of "inaction".

Congolese soldiers were stationed about 10 kilometres from the attack site, in the mining town of Manguredjipa, but did not respond in time, according to local and security sources.

"It is incomprehensible that despite the presence of soldiers, the enemy continues to kill the population," Samuel Kakule, who heads the local civil society organisation, told AFP at the funeral.

In Fotodu, some 25 kilometres from the key city of Beni, the militia "killed 18 people" on Monday evening, local civil society official Kino Katuo told AFP on Wednesday. Security sources corroborated that toll.

- Decades of violence -

The ADF had already killed more than 40 people in attacks on several settlements in the Bapere sector on August 13 and 14.

Just over two weeks before, the group triggered international outrage by killing dozens of worshippers, including women and children, in a raid on a Catholic church in the town of Komanda.

Both the Ugandan and Congolese armies have sent troops to the region to tackle the ADF, whose members have killed thousands of civilians across the DRC's unrest-plagued northeast.

But that joint operation has pushed the ADF into isolated and tough-to-access regions which the military often struggles to reach in time, leaving civilians at the mercy of the group's fighters. 

In recent months, the Rwanda-backed M23 militia has seized swathes of the Congolese east in the North and South Kivu provinces since renewing its armed activities in 2021.

After swift offensives between January and February, the M23 now controls the major cities of Goma and Bukavu.

However, the M23 has limited its expansion northward, avoiding the areas patrolled by Ugandan troops.

Though the DRC and Rwanda signed a peace deal in June, and the Congolese government signed a separate commitment to a ceasefire with the M23 in July, violence has continued on the ground.

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