« They asked me to sit down so that they cut me with the machete »: Kavuho Ndovya survived a massacre of civilians attributed to the armed group of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) which sows terror in Beni is from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
More than 110 civilians have been killed in the border region of Uganda since November 5, according to a report prepared by AFP from various sources, including local.
About sixty survivors are cared for at the Beni General Hospital, heavily injured and traumatized.
Most of them were shot in the legs « because they were hit in their flight, » says Dr. Godefroid Kombi, chief surgeon at Beni Hospital.
« Those who did not try to escape, like me, were cut in pieces like my parents, » says 9-year-old orphan Edwige Kalivanda.
The girl was shot in both legs while fleeing an attack in Rwangoma, a district of Beni-ville.
In the wounded pavilion, a mother of five, Kavuho Ndovya, carries the scars of « nine deep wounds », according to Dr. Kombi.
« I made the dead »
« The ADF asked me to sit down so that they cut me with a machete. I tried to flee but they chased me by cutting me off, « says the mother.
She survived the November 19 attack in Mbau, 26 km north of Beni, at the entrance to the Mbau-Eringeti-Oicha « death triangle ».
« I fell a first time, they cut me with their machetes. I ran away a second time, they fired. I made the dead, « she told an AFP journalist.
« If I had not tried to flee or play dead, I’m sure I would not be alive. They did not touch my children who witnessed this unbearable scene, « she says, her eyes lost, with barely enough strength to speak.
Next door, a 12-year-old girl, Kavira Kivua, is in a coma, a bandage around her head.
« It’s inside our house in Oicha that my daughter was shot through her mouth in an attack, » her mother Kyakimua Mbene explains in desperation.
Killed with a machete
The ADF, originally a Ugandan Muslim rebel movement, has been based in eastern DRC, where they have been rooted for nearly 25 years. They attack civilians in remote areas, often inaccessible to security forces.
Accused of killing 1,000 civilians since October 2014, the ADF intensified their attacks after the announcement of military operations against their bases on 30 October. « Reprisals » to break the support of civilians to the army, according to observers.
« They asked me if I knew where the soldiers were, if I collaborated with the military. Even before answering, they shot me and left, « said Kavira Mahiha, a survivor with a bullet in her ankle.
She survived the 16 November Mbau raid along the RN4. « The record of the attack was 15 people killed with the machete ».
She agreed to keep the one-and-a-half-year-old Kambale Mbumba, the child of her neighbor killed by the ADF, as well as her husband and three other brothers of this child. « From her family, Kambale is the only survivor, » she says.
In this violence, cases of settlement of account are also reported. « Only minutes after an attack on our city (Mbau) by the ADF on November 16, it was our neighbor, a soldier of our own army, who shot at me, injuring my leg, » accuses Kavuo Mbafumoja, a resident of Mbau. His right leg is caught in a cast.
Shattered skulls, decapitated child, head decapitated cooking in a pot: on Twitter, Internet users broadcast for several days images of the worst atrocities attributed to the ADF, this group continues to kill, as an expert says, « in the silence of the night ».
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