Government troops in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo killed 21 out of a group of militia fighters who attacked them at the weekend, an officer of the DRC army said on Monday.
Colonel Janvier Mayanga wa Kishuba, in command of an army brigade based in Rutshuru, part of the eastern province of Ituru, said the deaths took place on Saturday during clashes with so-called Mai-Mai guerillas who are allied to ethnic Hutu rebels from nearby Rwanda.
”The toll was 21 dead on the enemy side and four injured on our side,” he said.
He said the Mai-Mai assailants had fled into the Virunga national park near the DRC’s border with Uganda after around two hours of fighting.
On Sunday the Ugandan armed forces reported that scores of villagers from the DRC had fled across the border to escape from fighting in the same region.
The army spokesperson for western Uganda, Lieutenant Chris Magezi, said more than 100 DRC civilians had fled the fighting which erupted early on Saturday between the Mai Mai militia and Rwanda-backed RCD-Goma Hutu rebels in Ishasa.
A spokesperson for the United Nations force in the region, which is called Monuc, said that no civilians had been killed in Sunday’s clashes, and there had been no looting. – Sapa-AFP