(Reuters) -Heavy clashes erupted this week between Congo’s army and a militia founded by a war criminal convicted at the International Criminal Court but later released, both sides said, and one civil society activist put the civilian death toll at 19.
Thomas Lubanga, an Ituri native, told Reuters in March that he was forming the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CPR) to topple the regional government, creating another potential security threat in war-scarred eastern Congo where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have also seized significant territory.
At the time, the group had not launched military operations, he said.
This week, however, Congo’s army said the CPR had attempted multiple attacks and that soldiers had killed 12 of the group’s fighters in two different locations around 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of Bunia, the Ituri capital.
A CPR commander, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media, said there were clashes but acknowledged the death of just “one of my men”.
Dieudonne Losa, a civil society activist in Bunia, said on Friday that 19 civilian deaths had been recorded, including 13 elderly women and four young girls.
“What is happening north of Bunia is an unacceptable situation,” Losa said.
The International Criminal Court secured a conviction against Lubanga in 2012 on charges of recruiting child soldiers and sentenced him to 14 years in prison.
He was released in 2020 and President Felix Tshisekedi appointed him to a task force to bring peace to Ituri. But in 2022 he was taken hostage for two months by a rebel group, which he blamed on the government, and he then based himself in Uganda.
It is unclear how many combatants Lubanga might control. U.N. experts last year accused him of mobilising fighters to support a local militia and M23.
(Reporting by Congo newsroom; Writing by Ayen Deng Bior; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Rosalba O’Brien)
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