At least 20 civilians were killed by ISCAP militants in Mangusu village. The village is located three kilometers from Komanda-centre on the Mambasa axis of the Irumu territory in Ituri.
According to survivors and witnesses majority of the victims were hostages whom the militants did not want to release as they served as human shields when the soldiers attacked them. The victims were then executed after the militants escaped the troops.
The massacre continued as at least another 9 people were killed in Shauri Moya in the same vicinity and another 4 people at a bridge over the River Ituri. At least 60 people have been killed in the space of a week in Ituri, by assailants who looted homes and shops.
Preliminary intelligence indicates that the victims were killed execution-style as they were tied up with some shot pointblank and others throats were slit in an increasingly brutal MO exhibited by the terror organization.
Following the attacks, thousands of men, women and children laden with their luggage travel long distances on foot. The majority of these displaced people are in the villages located between the city of Mambasa and the center of Mungamba, Irumu.
Ituri and North Kivu provinces have been under a state of siege for almost a year, an exceptional measure that has replaced the civil administration with the army and the police but has so far failed to bring back the peace. Additionally, since the end of November, the Ugandan army has been carrying out an operation against this terror group in eastern DRC, jointly with the Congolese army.
