Twenty-two people, most of them women and children, have been hacked and clubbed to death in the troubled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, just days after a similar massacre, a government official said on Saturday.
The attack on Friday evening in the town of Eringeti, in North Kivu, left 10 women, eight children and four men dead, a local government official told AFP.
“Most of the victims were killed with machetes, axes and hoes,” the non-governmental group Civil Society of North Kivu said in a statement.
Several children had their heads “bashed against the walls” it said, blaming a Ugandan rebel group that has terrorised the area for much of the last two decades.
The attack occurred some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the town of Beni, where 26 people were slaughtered with machetes on Thursday, raising doubts about government claims that the Ugandan fighters had been defeated.
Amisi Kalonda, government administrator for the Beni area, said he was heading to Eringeti along with an army contingent but was so far unable to say if the rebel Allied Democratic Forces — who have rear bases in the DC Congo — were to blame.
The Civil Society of North Kivu group said at least 79 people had been “savagely executed by the ADF” in the past fortnight, calling on the UN force in the country to contribute troops to help the army confront the rebels.