46 Pygmies killed in militia attack in eastern DR Congo

Forty-six Pygmies have been massacred in eastern DR Congo's Ituri province by the notorious Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia, local sources said yesterday. "ADF rebels overran the village of Abembi" on Thursday, said Gili Gotabo, a local NGO leader. "Forty-six people died and two were wounded, all of them from the Pygmy community," he said. The province's interior minister, Adjio Gigi, confirmed the toll and also blamed the ADF, which has been accused of hundreds of killings in the past year. The attack took place in a local chiefdom called Walese Vonkutu, on Ituri's border with North Kivu province, the sourcs said. Originating in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel group, the ADF is the most notorious of more than 100 militias that plague eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It has been accused of slaughtering hundreds of civilians in North Kivu and southern Ituri in reprisal for an army offensive launched  in late 2019.