Militia attack in Congo leaves scores dead in Ituri

What sources describe from Djugu

Local civil-protection voices and security contacts told AFP that fighters tied to CODECO—the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo—perpetrated a major assault in Ituri, the gold-rich north-eastern province bordering Uganda, toward the end of April 2026. Security tallies cited 69 dead; Dieudonné Losa, identified in French reporting as an Ituri civil-society figure, told AFP the provisional toll exceeded 70, with many victims understood to be civilians caught in communal warfare. Le Figaro narrated a sequence where Convention for the Popular Revolution (CRP) elements first struck FARDC positions near Pimbo in Djugu territory, after which CODECO combatants coming from that axis targeted multiple settlements on 28 April.

One security contact cited by AFP broke down the 69 figure to include 19 killed combatants—militiamen and soldiers—implying the majority were non-combatants even before civilian burial teams finished their accounting.

Because CODECO gunmen continued to roam the area, recovery teams could not reach corpses quickly—explaining why counts drift upward days after violence ends. Digital Journal’s English-language republication of AFP noted only 25 burials completed while humanitarian monitors described bodies remaining exposed near routes including areas around Bassa along national road 27—logistics that dramatise state absence more vividly than any single statistic.

Ethnic militia kaleidoscope journalists cite

CODECO publicly casts itself as shielding Lendu agrarian communities against Hema pastoral rivals—a communal cleavage foreign wires summarise cautiously because battlefield identities blur when profit motives and army patronage intersect. CRP, conversely, is portrayed as a Hema-linked formation operating inside the same crowded battlespace. AFP copy reminds audiences ADF militants—Ugandan-rooted fighters labelled Islamic State affiliates—also massacre villagers across Ituri and North Kivu, underscoring that no single militia owns eastern Congo’s suffering.

Le Figaro, summarising AFP, noted Kinshasa had escalated operations against CRP since 2025 and linked the group’s lineage to former warlord Thomas Lubanga, convicted by the ICC over child recruitment—political texture readers should treat as reporting lineage rather than fresh judicial findings against current street-level gunmen.

Parallel ADF tempo the same week

AFP reporting syndicated internationally added that ADF fighters killed at least 36 people within two days of strikes spanning Ituri and North Kivu—a reminder that CODECO headlines compete with jihadist violence for scarce peacekeeping resources. Ugandan units have since 2021 partnered FARDC on counter-ADF operations in northern North Kivu and parts of Ituri, yet rural corridors remain porous.

MONUSCO’s warning and the macro picture

The UN mission MONUSCO warned the same weekend of a “deadly” surge hitting civilians across Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu without publishing granular spreadsheets. Digital Journal relayed that caution alongside decades-long framing of mineralised eastern DRC as a mosaic of army factions, proxy economics, and displaced millions.

Each spike in communal killing piles strain onto clinics and cholera-prone displacement sites before investigators arrive—meaning headline tolls undercount delayed deaths from untreated wounds or disease outbreaks triggered when survivors flee bush routes without shelter.

Wire stories also note FARDC occasionally harnesses CODECO fighters as auxiliaries—a dependency human-rights monitors argue encourages impunity when irregular units pivot from battlefield allies to predators against non-combatants. Newsorga treats auxiliary claims as documented patterns reported by conflict researchers rather than courtroom verdicts against named commanders.

Verification limits reporters acknowledge

Wire dispatches lean on civil-society intermediaries precisely because roadblocks—literal and bureaucratic—prevent rapid independent documentation. AFP’s caution around provisional tolls mirrors standard conflict-reporting ethics: figures shift when families reclaim bodies or when army spokespeople revise blended civilian-combatant spreadsheets.

Why international peace deals rarely silence rifles

Regional diplomacy—including externally brokered ceasefires involving Kinshasa and neighbours—has repeatedly failed to starve militias of revenue from contraband minerals and taxation rackets. Ituri’s massacres arrive as a grim meter of implementation gaps: paper signatures in capitals rarely dismantle Pimbo-scale flashpoints overnight. Border-adjacent provinces remain laboratories where peace communiques decay within hours of circulation.

Bottom line

Confirmed by quoted sources: late-April CODECO-linked attackers killed 69+ people in Djugu, with delayed toll reconciliation and partial burials only. Also reported same news cycle: ADF spikes and MONUSCO alarm bells across three eastern provinces. Unknown without independent verification: chain-of-command orders linking auxiliary deployments to specific atrocities. Track next: burial counts, survivor testimony from displaced communities, and whether prosecutors attach names to command responsibility beyond communal labels.