16 Killed in Road Ambush by Suspected Militants Eastern Congo

At least 16 people were killed in a suspected militant attack on a remote road in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo, the director of a local hospital said on Friday.

The attack took place on a road near the town of Oicha, around 390 km (242 miles) north of the eastern provincial capital of Goma.

Hospital staff revealed that nine others were injured, with three, including a baby, in critical condition. Moreover, the dead included six women and two children.

Survivors blamed the assault on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist militant group that claims links to Islamic State which have been accused of killing thousands of people since 2014, mostly in similarly remote areas.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and the ADF could not be reached.

Maman Masika Kahindo, a local farmer, said she was travelling in a minibus with her 11-year-old son when fighters dressed in ADF fatigues fired on the crowded vehicle and killed her son.

“They fired several bullets and the driver immediately died,” Kahindo said, wearing bandages over her chest where she said she had been grazed by gunfire. “They took him out of the vehicle and shot my child in the head.”

Furthermore, Janvier Kasayiro, who heads a local coalition of civil society groups, blamed the Islamist militants, noting that several people who had been travelling in the same bus as Kahindo were still missing.