A young woman, aged 23, has been killed by a soldier from the Congolese Army (FARDC) 31st main defense brigade in Mambasa, Ituri Province.
The young woman who was part of a contingent that had fled their homes following a series of attacks by the ADF rebels was shot dead on Thursday by a soldier at a mining site in Yolo, located in the Babila ba Kwanza chiefdom, 40 kilometers southeast of Mambasa with the causes of the altercation yet to be clearly established.
“Around two in the morning, a soldier opened fire on a 23-year-old girl, unfortunately hitting two other girls and a 49-year-old man,” said a witness.
The situation caused panic amongst the residents and miners at Yolo who had to flee to the Ituri river in fear as they thought it had been another attack by the ADF rebels.
“The people at the site thought it was an ADF attack as usual, they fled to the Ituri River and among them there are already cases of drowning. We don’t know yet the number of missing, but we deplore this situation. This is why we ask the authorities to prohibit access to the military in mining sites to avoid such tragedies”, declared Maître John Vuleveryo Musombolwa, human rights defender at Mambasa.
Since November 2023, soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed more than three people in the territory of Mambasa, the human rights activist revealed.
