Authorities on Thursday said 27 people have been killed during attacks by a rebel group in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province since the weekend.

Hope Sabini, Deputy Provincial Governor, said that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia group attacked several villages in Rutshuru area over several days,

He said nineteen civilians were killed as well as eight rebels.

The FDLR are mostly Rwandan Hutu fighters, whom Human Rights Watch and other organisations have accused of carrying out murders, mutilations and rape.

Numerous militias and rebel groups are active in the troubled provinces of North and South Kivu.

Some conflicts have ethnic components, many are also about control of the country’s lucrative natural mineral resources. </s> Twenty-three people have been killed in renewed clashes between ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, according to an official toll Wednesday.

The violence, in Rutshuru territory in the conflict-scarred province of North Kivu, has pitted the Hutu community on one side against the Nande and Hundu groups on the other.

"We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

Fighting occurred in the villages of Bwalanda, Mutanda and Kikuku, where the groups have regularly clashed over control of land. Several dozen people were killed in 2017.

The Nande and Hunde consider Congolese Hutu to be foreigners and in league with Rwandan Hutu rebels, gathered in a notoriously violent militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR, set up in 2000, includes several leaders who took part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis, as well as member of the Pygmy Batwa community, were slaughtered by the Hutu majority government.

Eastern DRC has been a theatre of ethnic violence for 20 years, fuelled in part by the desire to control valuable mineral resources and farmland. </s> "We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

"We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

Twenty-three people have been killed in renewed clashes between ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, according to an official toll Wednesday.

The violence, in Rutshuru territory in the conflict-scarred province of North Kivu, has pitted the Hutu community on one side against the Nande and Hundu groups on the other.

"We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

Fighting occurred in the villages of Bwalanda, Mutanda and Kikuku, where the groups have regularly clashed over control of land. Several dozen people were killed in 2017.

The Nande and Hunde consider Congolese Hutu to be foreigners and in league with Rwandan Hutu rebels, gathered in a notoriously violent militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR, set up in 2000, includes several leaders who took part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis, as well as member of the Pygmy Batwa community, were slaughtered by the Hutu majority government.

Eastern DRC has been a theatre of ethnic violence for 20 years, fuelled in part by the desire to control valuable mineral resources and farmland. </s> BUNIA, Congo — Authorities say nearly three dozen people have been killed in the latest round of intercommunal fighting in northeastern Congo.

Interior Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi said 34 bodies had been found Friday after the killings in several villages in Congo’s Ituri province.

But one legislator who spoke with U.N.-backed Radio Okapi put the toll at 50 dead, and urged the military to stop the killings.

In early February, fighting erupted and left at least 26 dead in the area.

The violence has been between members of the Lendu and Hema groups, whose battles between 1999 and 2004 left untold thousands dead and led to the arrival of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the area. </s> Congolese soldiers kill at least 101 in militia clashes -U.N.

GENEVA, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Soldiers targeting the Kamwina Nsapu militia group in central Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 101 people between Feb. 9 and Feb. 13, including 39 women, the U.N. said on Tuesday.

The soldiers fired indiscriminately with machine guns when they saw the militia fighters, who were armed mainly with machetes and spears, human rights spokeswoman Liz Throssell said, citing sources in the country.

"We are deeply concerned at the reported high number of deaths, which if confirmed would suggest excessive and disproportionate use of force by the soldiers," she said. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Louise Ireland) </s> At least 20 people were killed in ethnic clashes last week in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled Kasai region, according to the United Nations.

The UN's DR Congo mission said in a statement on Wednesday that the clashes took place in the central region, east of the Kasai capital, Tshikapa.

Violence between members of the Lulua-Luba and Chowe-Pende communities escalated, and saw at least 20 members of the Chowe-Pende killed, the agency said.

The Chowe-Pende accuse the Lulua-Luba of supporting the Kamwina Nsapu militia.

The Kamwina Nsapu militia claim its authority from chief Kamwina Nsapu, who was killed in the region in August 2016 by police after a rebellion against the Congolese authorities.

The militia has been fighting security forces largely to avenge the chief's death.

READ MORE: Kamwina Nsapu militia kill 40 policemen in DR Congo

According to the UN, fighting has killed at least 400 people, including two UN investigators, since government troops killed the chief eight months ago.

The violence has become the most serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose decision to stay in power after his mandate ran out in December gave rise to nationwide lawlessness.



The UN has accused the Kamwina Nsapu rebellion of numerous atrocities and of recruiting children for combat.

Numerous mass graves, reportedly dug by DRC soldiers after clashes with the militia, have also been found in the Kasai region.

The UN has almost 19,000 troops deployed in Congo, its largest and costliest peacekeeping mission. </s> At least 34 civilians were killed Sunday in ethnic violence in restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said.

"The provisional toll is 34 civilians killed," said local official Joy Bekele, referring to the attack by a Nance ethnicity militia on the Hutu village of Langa.

"They started by attacking the FARDC (DR Congo military) position. While they were attacking the FARDC, another group was executing the population with bladed weapons or bullets," Ms Bekele said.

He added that the attack was carried out by a Nance militia group and that one of the attackers was killed in the clashes.

Tension between the Nance and Hutu peoples have been high in the restive east, shaken by two decades of fighting over land, ethnic tensions and mineral riches. </s> KINSHASA (Reuters) - Clashes between a tribal militia and security forces in a province of central Congo killed at least 31 people at the weekend, its vice governor said on Monday.

Hubert Mbingho N’Vula said on state TV that the conflict in Kasaï province started after a row between an uncle and a nephew over who had the title to a local chieftaincy, before Congolese forces stepped in to try to restore order.

“(The uncle) resorted to raising a militia,” N’Vula said, adding that 13 security forces and 18 militiamen had been killed.

More than a decade after a 1996-2003 war that killed millions, the mineral-rich country remains a tinderbox of armed groups and ethnic militias. </s> Seven people died in a raid by suspected Ugandan Islamist rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the latest in a string of deadly cross-border attacks, officials said Sunday.

"Six people were shot dead and another was stabbed" in the village of Eringeti in DR Congo's restive North Kivu province, a Congolese military source told AFP.

Eringeti's mayor Leon Baungatho said the assault happened around 5.30 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday.

"We are still grieving," said regional official Noela Kavivutwiraki. "The army needs to redouble its efforts to prevent suprise attacks from Ugandan rebels."

Thought to be behind a string of deadly attacks in North Kivu, the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia stands accused of a number of attrocities in DR Congo.

Congolese authorities and the UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, accuse the ADF of having killed more than 700 civilians as well as combatants in the Beni region from 2014-16.

The ADF is also accused of killing 14 UN peacekeepers in eastern DR Congo on December 7, in the biggest single loss of peacekeepers in nearly a quarter of a century.

The government in January declared it was waging "war" on the ADF and a Congolese militia, the Yakutumba, which is active in South Kivu province, several hundred kilometres (miles) to the south.
The death toll from clashes between militias in the Rutshuru Territory of the North Kivu province, DR Congo, rises to 23 people. The renewed violence has been ongoing since February 25.