• The attack occurred overnight in the village of Bwanasura in Irumu territory.
• Volunteers from the Red Cross in Irumu, “counted 36 bodies”: David Beiza.
• “Ituri and North Kivu have been under a “state of siege” since May last year.

At least 20 people were killed in a new massacre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern province of Ituri, A respected monitor said on Monday adding that the notorious ADF militia was suspected.

The attack occurred overnight in the village of Bwanasura in Irumu territory, according to the Kivu Security Tracker (KST) on Twitter.

Volunteers from the Red Cross in Irumu, according to David Beiza, have “counted 36 bodies” at the site of the massacre.

Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province are struggling with attacks by armed groups, many of them a legacy of wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s east.

KST said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — a group that the so-called Islamic State describes as its affiliate — was suspected to have been behind the killing.

Beiza said, “ADF rebels arrived around eight pm. They moved calmly. Fortunately, many residents were able to flee.”

Ituri and North Kivu have been under a “state of siege” since May last year — a measure placing army chiefs in positions of authority to speed up efforts against armed groups.

Read more: 17 bodies discovered in east DR Congo

The ADF was also targeted in a joint operation launched last November by government and Ugandan forces following bomb attacks in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Despite the crackdown, the ADF’s attacks have continued.

On Saturday, at least 27 people were killed in Beu-Manyama, a village in the Beni area of North Kivu in an attack blamed on the group.

In March, at least 30 people were killed by suspected rebels in North Kivu and more than 50 people died in a two-day assault on villages in Irumu.

The ADF is historically a Ugandan rebel coalition whose biggest group comprised Muslims opposed to President Yoweri Museveni.

Established in eastern DRC in 1995, the group became the deadliest of scores of outlawed forces in the deeply troubled region.

The ADF has been blamed for massacres, kidnappings, and looting, with a toll in lives estimated in the thousands.

Since April 2019, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for some ADF attacks in eastern DRC, referring to the group as its local offshoot, the Islamic State Central Africa Province.

The US placed the ADF on its list of “terrorist” organizations linked to IS last year.

Read more: 14 civilians killed in eastern DR Congo attack