Machete attack by Ugandan kills 23 in DR Congo

“We counted 23 dead and one wounded,” an army officer at the scene told AFP.

A police officer said the victims were killed with machetes.

The attack was the first reported in the region since the UN mission MONUSCO and the army announced in mid-December that
they had launched a new offensive against the Ugandan rebels blamed for the attacks.

Beni was hit by a string of mass killings from October to December that left more than 260 people dead, most of them
slaughtered with machetes and farm tools.

Congolese authorities, military experts and the UN blame the killings on militants from the Allied Democratic Forces
and National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU), which is based in eastern Congo.

The rebels, who are said to number around 400, have been active in the region since being driven out of their homeland
in 1995.

MONUSCO blamed the group for massacring 30 people in the northeastern Orientale province in late December.