Congo: At Least 60 Killed in CODECA Attack on Displacement Camp in Northeast DRC

While the victims were Hema herders, the attackers were CODECA militants, hailing from the Lendu farming community.

A map of Congo and Ituri's location. 

Photo: Twitter/@LolweTv

At least 60 people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo when a militant group called the CODECO attacked a displacement camp on Wednesday, 2 February, Reuters reported.

The attack occurred in the eastern part of the country, in Ituri province, according to witnesses and members of a local humanitarian group who told Reuters that the killings took place around 2 AM GMT in a camp called Savo.

CODECO is an abbreviation for the Cooperative for Development of the Congo, whose fighters have killed hundreds of people in Ituri in recent years, according to UN reports.

Many more have been displaced from their homes into displacement camps, and recent CODECA attacks have targeted those camps as well.

Lokana Bale Lussa, a camp resident, told Kivu Security Tracker (KST), "I first heard cries when I was still in bed. Then several minutes of gunshots. I fled and I saw torches and people crying for help and I realised it was the CODECO militiamen who had invaded our site", as quoted in Al Jazeera.

KST tracks militia violence and attacks in the region.

"We have counted more than 60 dead and (more) seriously injured," Lussa added.

Charite Banza Bavi, who leads the humanitarian group in the local area, estimates 63 people to have been killed.

CODECO militants mostly come from the Lendu farming community, while the victims are Hema herders.

Both communities have been warring with each other since Congo's colonial period, when the Belgians had control of the country.

The conflict today, however, was catalysed by the Second Congo War that began in the late 1990s.

(With inputs from Al Jazeera and Reuters)