Congolese militia massacres villagers

BENI, DR Congo (AFP) — Suspected militia fighters have decapitated 16 people in a new village massacre near Beni in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, civil society sources said Friday.

Three more civilians were wounded in Beni town by an explosive device on Thursday night, an official source said, in a new tactic in a region beset by militia violence for decades.

The killings on Thursday in the Mbau region north of Beni have been blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces, a militia group officials say is responsible for a string of massacres since the start of November.

“Sixteen decapitated bodies have been found in searches that started in the evening,” Jamal Moussa, spokesman for the network of civil society organisations in Mbau told AFP.

The massacre targeted the small village of Mantumbi.