Heavy clashes erupted this week between Congo's army and a
militia founded by a war criminal convicted at the
International Criminal Court but later released, both sides
said, and one civil society activist put the civilian death
toll at 19.
Thomas Lubanga, an Ituri native, told Reuters in March that he
was forming the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CPR) to
topple the regional government, creating another potential
security threat in war-scarred eastern Congo where
Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have also seized significant
territory.
At the time, the group had not launched military operations, he
said.
This week, however, Congo's army said the CPR had attempted
multiple attacks and that soldiers had killed 12 of the group's
fighters in two different locations around 30 kilometres (19
miles) north of Bunia, the Ituri capital.
A CPR commander, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorised to brief the media, said there
were clashes but acknowledged the death of just "one of my
men".
Dieudonne Losa, a civil society activist in Bunia, said on
Friday that 19 civilian deaths had been recorded, including 13
elderly women and four young girls.
"What is happening north of Bunia is an unacceptable
situation," Losa said.
The International Criminal Court secured a conviction against
Lubanga in 2012 on charges of recruiting child soldiers and
sentenced him to 14 years in prison.
He was released in 2020 and President Felix Tshisekedi
appointed him to a task force to bring peace to Ituri. But in
2022 he was taken hostage for two months by a rebel group,
which he blamed on the government, and he then based himself in
Uganda.
It is unclear how many combatants Lubanga might control. U.N.
experts last year accused him of mobilising fighters to support
a local militia and M23.