{"id":29310,"date":"2016-10-11T02:15:04","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T02:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/dr-congo-civilians-killed-as-rebels-clash-with\/"},"modified":"2016-10-11T02:15:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T02:15:19","slug":"dr-congo-civilians-killed-as-rebels-clash-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/dr-congo-civilians-killed-as-rebels-clash-with\/","title":{"rendered":"DR Congo: Civilians killed as rebels clash with army"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{At least eight civilians shot dead in the crossfire in eastern Beni town after insurgents were engaged by DRC troops.}<\/p>\n<p>At least eight civilians have been killed during a firefight between the army and rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).<\/p>\n<p>Gilbert Kambale, a civil society leader, told AFP news agency on Monday that rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked the town of Beni in North Kivu overnight, with eight civilians, a soldier, and an ADF fighter shot dead.<\/p>\n<p>Mak Hazukay, the DRC army&#8217;s spokesman, said the civilians were killed in the crossfire between the army and the rebels.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The armed forces of the DRC intercepted the ADF and in the exchanges of fire civilians and soldiers were killed,&#8221; Hazukay said.<\/p>\n<p>The ADF was founded in Uganda in 1995 with the aim of toppling President Yoweri Museveni . It later moved to the DRC where it is one among dozens of armed groups seeking control over territory and mineral resources in the east of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Human rights violations<\/p>\n<p>In the past, independent observers have blamed both ADF rebels and DRC forces for deadly attacks against civilians.<\/p>\n<p>The Beni area in particular has seen numerous massacres since October 2014, which have left more than 700 civilians dead.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, US-based rights group Human Rights Watch criticised the government for failing to protect the people of the Beni region and called on authorities to develop &#8220;a new strategy to protect civilians&#8221; in the area.<\/p>\n<p>On August 4, DRC President Joseph Kabila and Museveni held talks in Uganda seeking a coordinated military strategy against the ADF fighters.<\/p>\n<p>The rebels have been present in eastern DRC for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>The group has been accused of human rights abuses and is thought to be deeply embroiled in criminal networks funded by kidnappings, smuggling, and illegal logging.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15629 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/a51e22d15f2143bc9f1bd190118dfb61_18.jpg\" alt=\"The rebels have been present in eastern DRC for more than 20 years\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{At least eight civilians shot dead in the crossfire in eastern Beni town after insurgents were engaged by DRC troops.} At least eight civilians have been killed during a firefight between the army and rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Gilbert Kambale, a civil society leader, told AFP news agency on Monday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29310"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29310"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}