Group Of Alleged Congolese Militants Attack A Village, 19 Dead

JAKARTA - Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 19 people in an attack on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, local authorities said.

The attackers looted houses and started setting fires in Kasanzi-Kithovo near Virunga National Park in North Kivu province overnight between Friday and Saturday, they said.

"I don't know where to go with my two children," villager Kahindo Lembula, who lost four relatives in the attack, told Reuters by telephone. "Only God will help us."

Buliki district chief Necklacea Meso and local rights group CEPADHO blamed the attack on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) - an Islamist militant group accused of killing thousands of people in recent years, mostly in remote areas.

No party has yet claimed responsibility and the ADF could not be reached.

The government declared martial law in North Kivu and neighboring Ituri province in early May, in a bid to quell a wave of violence largely attributed by the military to the ADF.

But since then the number of civilians killed in such attacks has continued to rise, according to the Kivu Security Tracker, which maps unrest in eastern Congo.

Earlier in August, President Felix Tshisekedi said special forces from the United States would soon be deployed to the east to gauge the potential of local anti-terrorism units to fight violent Islamist militant groups.

The ADF was blacklisted in March by Washington as a terrorist group. The ADF is openly allied with ISIS, which in turn has claimed responsibility for some of its attacks.

But in a June report, UN experts said they found no evidence of direct support from ISIS to the ADF.