Pallade Veneta - Rebels kill seven and target health centres in east DR Congo

"They even killed sick people," Norbert Muhindo, a nurse at the referral clinic in the town of Maboya, in the Beni territory of North Kivu province, told AFP.

The rebels belonged to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a movement presented by the jihadist organisation Islamic State as its branch in Central Africa, Muhindo said.

The raiders arrived in Maboya "around midnight", he declared, adding: "There were many of them. They said 'We want war'."

The attackers first set fire to the health centre, where they killed three people, before spreading terror in the centre of the town, where three more killings were reported.

Muhindo said they moved on to "the Tinge hospital owned by the Protestant community", about 1.5 kilometres (almost a mile) from the Maboya health centre.

At Tinge, "they killed a sentry and took a nurse with them," he said.

Roger Wangeve, president of the civil society of the Bashu chiefdom (an administrative body), confirmed the incursion, blaming "ADF rebels" who "burned the Tinge hospital and the Maboya referral health centre".

According to Wangeve, the rebel force later "burned and looted villages".

The provisional toll of seven dead was confirmed by a police source who asked not to be named.

After a few weeks of calm, attacks have apparently resumed in the Beni territory, where the Congolese and Ugandan armies have been engaged in joint operations against the ADF for almost a year.

The ADF, which originated in western Uganda, is accused of massacres of civilians in the east of the DRC and jihadist attacks at the end of 2021 in Uganda.

Eastern DRC has been destabilised for nearly three decades by the presence of more than a hundred local and foreign armed groups, including the ADF.

The DRC's provinces of North Kivu and Ituri have been under a state of siege since May 2021, but the exceptional measure has so far failed to stop the violence.

R.Zarlengo--PV