Suspected Islamist militants have killed more than 60 people in over five days of attacks on villages in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources said on Tuesday.

The assailants, believed to be rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), have targeted at least five villages, and the offensive was still ongoing, the residents told Reuters.

“The fighting continues even at this hour, and victims’ bodies are being evacuated on motorbikes,” said Kinos Katuho, a civil society leader in the village of Mamove.

He said 62 deaths had been recorded across the five villages and accused the army of doing nothing to protect villagers.

“I returned (home) to find my whole family killed, my sisters, my children,” said another Mamove resident, Suzanne Mwassi, who hid in the surrounding bush for two days after militants attacked over the weekend.

Overwhelmed by violence in its eastern regions, Congo’s government appointed military officers to run North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province in May.

In December, Uganda sent more than 1,000 troops to wage joint operations against the ADF.

However, the attacks have continued unabated as ADF fighters have lashed out at local civilians in retaliation for the military campaigns.

Congolese army spokesperson, Antony Mwalushayi, said more than 300 soldiers had been sent to the area and that two ADF militants were killed on Tuesday.

The ADF, which was created in Uganda before moving to eastern Congo in the 1990s, has been blamed for thousands of deaths since 2013, many in middle-of-the-night massacres carried out with machetes and hatchets.

Uganda also blamed the ADF for a triple suicide bombing in the capital Kampala on November 16 that killed seven people and injured dozens more.

(Reuters/NAN)