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Armed rebels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo killed over 65 people in a series of attacks across multiple villages in the country’s northeastern Ituri province.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, the mineral-rich eastern DRC has been a war zone for various armed groups for more than 30 years, with militias and rebel forces fighting for control of the region’s vast mineral wealth (including cobalt, copper, uranium, gold, and diamonds). The region is also dealing with attacks from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Uganda-origin armed group that has pledged allegiance to ISIS and has been based in DRC since the late 1990s. Since 2021, the Ugandan army has been deployed in northern North Kivu and Ituri alongside the Congolese military to fight the ADF. Nearly one million people are internally displaced in Ituri province alone, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

What’s going on now: At least 69 people were killed when CODECO (Cooperative for the Development of the Congo) fighters launched a wave of attacks across multiple villages in Ituri province. Locals described the violence as retaliation for an earlier assault by the rival CRP (Convention for the Popular Revolution) on Congolese army positions near the locality of Pimbo.

Two security sources who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity confirmed the death toll, noting that 19 of the 69 killed were militia members and soldiers. Civil society leader Dieudonne Losa told AFP the actual death figure exceeds 70.

The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) said on Saturday that it “strongly condemns the recent wave of deadly attacks targeting civilians” in the restive east. MONUSCO had already announced on April 30 that it rescued “nearly 200 people caught under fire” from the earlier CRP assault on the FARDC.

The Ituri attacks come amid a separate and parallel ADF offensive that’s been hitting other parts of the region. In the Ituri town of Biakato, ADF fighters reportedly killed no fewer than 15 people. Among the dead were three women and at least one child, with the head of the local civil society organization telling reporters the fighters used bullets and machetes. A separate wave of ADF strikes hit four remote villages along the Ituri-North Kivu border, leaving 21 dead. The majority were farmers.

Amnesty International accused the ADF of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a report published Tuesday, and the UN has separately implicated the group in extrajudicial killings, extortion, and kidnappings for ransom.