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No fewer than 69 people have been killed in a militia attack in Ituri province in the northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Local and security sources told AFP on Saturday that the death toll was at least 69, including 19 militia members and soldiers.
The DRC, a Central African country famous for its large deposits of cobalt, copper, uranium and diamonds, has been torn by a violent conflict and has been a battleground between various armed groups who are competing for control of its many mines.
Two ethnic groups, the Hema and the Lendu, have been locked in a long-running, violent conflict in Ituri, a gold-rich province that borders Uganda and South Sudan.
According to local and security forces, men affiliated with an armed group which claims to protect the Lendu, Codeco militia (Cooperative for the Development of Congo), carried out attacks in several villages on April 28, 2026.
They told AFP that the April 28 attacks followed an earlier assault by another armed group, the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CRP) — which says it fights for the Hema community — on positions held by the Congolese army (FARDC) near the locality of Pimbo.
A civil society leader, Dieudonne Losa, said over 70 people were killed when Codeco fighters launched the retaliatory attacks in late April.
Two other security sources who pleaded anonymity said the presence of Codeco fighters delayed the recovery of the bodies for several days.
“Only 25 bodies have been buried,” Losa said on Saturday, adding several sets of remains had yet to be recovered.
A humanitarian source described bodies “strewn on the ground” near the village of Bassa, one of the areas targeted.
The United Nations’ mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) said on April 30, 2026, that it had rescued “nearly 200 people caught under fire” from the CRP assault on the FARDC.
MONUSCO also condemned the attacks. The Ente association, a non-profit representing the Hema community, described the killings as a “massacre”, urging its members to avoid retaliation.
Since 2025, Ituri has seen a resurgence of the CRP, a group founded by convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga.
Lubanga was found guilty in 2012 by the International Criminal Court for recruiting children into his rebel army and released in 2020 on completion of his prison sentence.
The region also faces ongoing attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group formed by former Ugandan rebels that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
