BENI, DR Congo, May 29, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - At least 27 civilians were killed

by members of a notorious rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
on Saturday, the army and Red Cross said.

The Kivu Security Tracker (KST), which monitors violence in the region via a
team of experts on the ground, posted on Twitter to say that at least 27
civilians had been killed in the attack.

"We heard bullets at dawn in the village of Beu Manyama," army spokesman
Anthony Mualushayi told AFP earlier Saturday.

"When we arrived, it was already too late because the enemy ADF had already
killed more than a dozen of our fellow citizens with machetes."

Described by the so-called Islamic State as its local affiliate, the rebel
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) have been accused of killing thousands of
civilians in DRC's troubled east.

After the attack early Saturday, in the Beni region in North Kivu province,
soldiers pursued the attackers and "neutralised seven ADF" and captured
another, Mualushayi said.

Earlier Saturday, local Red Cross head Philippe Bonane had put the civilian
death toll at 24 and was supervising the transfer of bodies to the morgue.

The massacre comes after almost a month of relative calm in Beni, where the
Congolese and Ugandan armies have been conducting joint military operations
against the ADF since late November.

On Friday another Red Cross representative said that soldiers in the
neighbouring Ituri province had found 17 decapitated bodies, also believed to
be victims of the ADF.

More than 120 armed groups roam eastern DRC and civilian massacres are
common.

Both Ituri and North Kivu have been under an official "state of siege" since
May last year, and the army and police have replaced senior administrators in
a bid to stem attacks by armed groups.

Despite this, authorities have been unable to stop the massacres which are
regularly carried out on civilians.