Authorities on Thursday said 27 people have been killed during attacks by a rebel group in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province since the weekend.

Hope Sabini, Deputy Provincial Governor, said that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia group attacked several villages in Rutshuru area over several days,

He said nineteen civilians were killed as well as eight rebels.

The FDLR are mostly Rwandan Hutu fighters, whom Human Rights Watch and other organisations have accused of carrying out murders, mutilations and rape.

Numerous militias and rebel groups are active in the troubled provinces of North and South Kivu.

Some conflicts have ethnic components, many are also about control of the country’s lucrative natural mineral resources. </s> Twenty-three people have been killed in renewed clashes between ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, according to an official toll Wednesday.

The violence, in Rutshuru territory in the conflict-scarred province of North Kivu, has pitted the Hutu community on one side against the Nande and Hundu groups on the other.

"We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

Fighting occurred in the villages of Bwalanda, Mutanda and Kikuku, where the groups have regularly clashed over control of land. Several dozen people were killed in 2017.

The Nande and Hunde consider Congolese Hutu to be foreigners and in league with Rwandan Hutu rebels, gathered in a notoriously violent militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR, set up in 2000, includes several leaders who took part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis, as well as member of the Pygmy Batwa community, were slaughtered by the Hutu majority government.

Eastern DRC has been a theatre of ethnic violence for 20 years, fuelled in part by the desire to control valuable mineral resources and farmland. </s> "We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

"We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

Twenty-three people have been killed in renewed clashes between ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, according to an official toll Wednesday.

The violence, in Rutshuru territory in the conflict-scarred province of North Kivu, has pitted the Hutu community on one side against the Nande and Hundu groups on the other.

"We have recorded the death of 16 civilians and seven militiamen since Sunday," Francois Bakundakabo, an aide to the provincial governor, told AFP.

Fighting occurred in the villages of Bwalanda, Mutanda and Kikuku, where the groups have regularly clashed over control of land. Several dozen people were killed in 2017.

The Nande and Hunde consider Congolese Hutu to be foreigners and in league with Rwandan Hutu rebels, gathered in a notoriously violent militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The FDLR, set up in 2000, includes several leaders who took part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis, as well as member of the Pygmy Batwa community, were slaughtered by the Hutu majority government.

Eastern DRC has been a theatre of ethnic violence for 20 years, fuelled in part by the desire to control valuable mineral resources and farmland. </s> BUNIA, Congo — Authorities say nearly three dozen people have been killed in the latest round of intercommunal fighting in northeastern Congo.

Interior Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi said 34 bodies had been found Friday after the killings in several villages in Congo’s Ituri province.

But one legislator who spoke with U.N.-backed Radio Okapi put the toll at 50 dead, and urged the military to stop the killings.

In early February, fighting erupted and left at least 26 dead in the area.

The violence has been between members of the Lendu and Hema groups, whose battles between 1999 and 2004 left untold thousands dead and led to the arrival of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the area.
The death toll from clashes between militias in the Rutshuru Territory of the North Kivu province, DR Congo, rises to 23 people. The renewed violence has been ongoing since February 25.