Many people dead in gunmen attack on northeast DRC village

Militia gunmen have attacked the village of Galay in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ituri province, killing at least 15 people, local officials and residents have said.

"They just started firing on everybody," Innocent Matukadala, an administrative official for Banyali Kilo district, which includes the village, said on Saturday.

Matukadala said there were at least 15 dead but the toll could rise as many people jumped into the Ituri river to escape the attack and were missing.

One emergency services official, who requested anonymity, said 16 bodies had been assembled in the village square.

They included seven women, one of whom was pregnant.

Scores of civilians have been killed this year in attacks blamed on the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO) armed group, which rival groups accuse of mining gold in the region.

Thousands died, millions left homes

The Action Against Hunger (ACF) aid group this week suspended its work in parts of Ituri province because of increased attacks blamed on CODECO and other groups.

ACF director for DRC, Florian Monnerie, said that all the armed groups had threatened his workers.

A UN peacekeeping force for DRC, which is meant to leave by the end of the year, still has hundreds of troops in Ituri seeking to prevent violence.

CODECO has thousands of fighters with the declared aim of protecting the Lendu ethnic group from rivals among the Hema, but it has also fought the DRC army.

A conflict between the two communities between 1999 and 2003 left thousands of dead.

After more than a decade of relative calm, fighting surged again in 2017. Thousands have died and more than 1.5 million people have fled their homes, according to UN figures.