Dozens Killed in Raid on DRC Gold Mine, Local Official Says

Raiders killed at least 35 people, including a baby, in an attack on a gold mine in Ituri, in the strife-torn northeast of Democratic Republic of Congo, local sources said Sunday.

One local official, Jean-Pierre Bikilisende, of the rural Mungwalu settlement in Djugu, Ituri, said the CODECO militia had carried out the attack on the artisanal mine.

Bikilisende said the militia had attacked the Camp Blanquette gold mine and that 29 bodies had been retrieved, while another six burned bodies had been found buried at the site.

Among the dead was a 4-month-old baby, he added.

“This is a provisional toll,” he said, as there had been other people killed whose bodies had been thrown down the mine shafts.

Several other civilians had been reported missing, he said, adding, “The search continues.”

Camp Blanquette was set up in a forest, far from the nearest military outpost, so help came too late, Bikilisende said.

Cherubin Kukundila, a civil leader in Mungwalu, said that at least 50 people had been killed in the raid.

Several people were wounded, nine of them seriously. They were being treated at Mungwalu hospital, he told AFP.

During their attack, the raiders had ransacked shops, carried off what the miners had dug out of the mine and burned down houses, he added.

The Camp Blanquette mine lies 7 kilometers from Mungwalu.

CODECO, the name for the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.

The Lendu and Hema communities have a long-standing feud that led to thousands of deaths between 1999 and 2003 before intervention by a European peacekeeping force.

Violence then resumed in 2017, blamed on the emergence of CODECO.

CODECO is considered one of the deadliest of the militias operating in the east of the country, blamed for a number of ethnic massacres in the province of Ituri.

It has been held responsible for attacks on soldiers and civilians, including those fleeing the conflict and aid workers.

Its attacks have caused hundreds of deaths and prompted more than 1.5 million people to flee their homes.

Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province have been under siege since May last year. The army and police have replaced senior administrators in a bid to stem attacks by armed groups.

Despite this, the authorities have been unable to stop the massacres regularly carried out on civilians.

Source: Voice of America

Islamic State Claims Attack That Killed 11 Egyptian Troops

An Islamic State affiliate in Egypt on Sunday claimed responsibility for an attack that targeted a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal, killing at least 11 soldiers.

At least five other soldiers were wounded in Saturday’s attack, according to the Egyptian military. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Egyptian security forces in recent years.

Thousands of people attended separate funerals for the dead Sunday.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, meanwhile, presided over a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which includes the military’s top commanders, to discuss the consequences of the attack, his office said without offering further details.

The extremist group announced its claim of the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. The authenticity of the statement could not be verified but it was released on Telegram as similar claims have been in the past.

The attack took place in the town of Qantara in the province of Ismailia, which stretches eastwards from the Suez Canal.

Militants attacked troops at a checkpoint guarding the pumping facility, then fled the site. The military said troops were pursuing the attackers in an isolated area of the northern Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt is battling an Islamic State-led insurgency in the Sinai that intensified after the military overthrew an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. The militants have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians.

The pace of militant attacks in Sinai’s main theater of operations and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched an extensive operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya.

Source: Voice of America

Seminar to nationals in Juba and its environs

The Presidential Advisor and Head of Political Affairs of the PFDJ, Mr. Yemane Gebreab conducted a seminar to nationals in Juba and its environs, South Sudan focusing on the objective situation in the homeland and regional as well as global developments.

At the seminar conducted yesterday, 07 May, Mr. Yemane gave an extensive briefing on the Eritrean struggle for independence and safeguarding national sovereignty for the last 60 years, as well as on strong resilience against all external hostilities, and stated that priority is being given to addressing challenges and ensuring regional peace and security.

Indicating that the progress and development of nations and societies are not only the responsibility of governments but also of citizens, Mr. Yemane explained the role and contribution of Eritreans inside and outside the country and called on them to reinforce organizational capacity.

The participants on their part commending for the briefing they were provided expressed readiness to reinforce contribution and participation in national development drives as well in national affairs.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea