BENI, Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 10 (Reuters) – A female peacekeeper from Malawi was killed on Monday morning in an attack by an Islamist militia in the province of North Kivu (eastern Congo), reported the UN and the Malawian government.

A local civil rights group said separately that fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist armed group of Ugandan origin, attacked the village of Kilia, about 18 km southeast of Beni in the region. province, killing at least five people. It was not clear if this figure included the peacekeeper.

“A peacekeeper was killed in an alleged ADF attack in the Beni region,” said MONUSCO, the UN peacekeeping mission, which has deployed around 12,000 troops to contain the violence of the United Nations. more than 120 armed groups in the east of the country.

Chitenji Kamanga, 28, was killed in the attack on the UN base in the village of Kilia at 1:30 p.m. local time, the Malawi Defense Forces (MDF) said in a statement.

“Malawi has lost a courageous, hard-working and disciplined woman soldier,” MDF said.

In March, the United States branded the ADF as a foreign terrorist organization because of its alleged links to the Islamic State group, although the UN has consistently downplayed the strength and nature of Islamic State’s influence. in Congo.

The last peacekeeper killed in the Congo was an Indonesian national on June 22. More than 370 people have been killed since the UN first sent troops during the civil war in 1999.

The ADF, active in Congo since the 1990s, has carried out a series of retaliatory attacks against civilians since the army began operations against it in late 2019, killing around 850 people last year, according to the UN.

Reporting by Fiston Mahamba, Erikas Mwisi Kambale and Hereward Holland; Editing by Hugh Lawson

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