26 killed in DR Congo attack blamed on Ugandan rebels

Goma (DR Congo) (AFP) - Twenty-six people have been killed in an attack in a major town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the army said Thursday, violence blamed on Ugandan rebels.

The assailants hacked or stabbed their victims to death in the overnight onslaught in Beni, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Olivier Hamuli told AFP.

Civil society groups in the North-Kivu region said the attack was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces, a Ugandan rebel group with rear bases in the DC Congo.

"I am not confirming that these were ADF, but these acts were the acts of terrorists," Hamuli said.

Eric Katasomia, a journalist for Radio Television Rwanzururu, told AFP he had seen 24 bodies at the scene, and that one appeared to be a member of the military, one was a child and four were women.

An offensive by the Congolese army and UN peacekeepers at the start of the year weakened the ADF rebels, but they have bounced back in recent weeks.