(Beni) A suicide bomber killed at least five people by detonating his bomb on Saturday in Beni, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where provincial authorities accuse rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) group, in a statement official.
“The suicide bomber, prevented by the security guards from accessing the bar crowded with customers, activated the bomb at the entrance. The still provisional toll shows six dead, including the suicide bomber, and 13 wounded admitted to local hospitals, ”wrote Brigadier General Sylvain Ekenge, spokesperson for the military governor of North Kivu.
A few minutes after the explosion, an AFP correspondent saw three shredded bodies. A source from the town hall of Beni indicated that among those killed, “there are two children”.
“Among the wounded are the two deputy mayors of the Communes of Mulekera and Ruwenzori”, he added, indicating that “the hard-pressed ADF terrorists activated their sleeper cells in the town of Beni with a view to launching actions against peaceful citizens ”.
The bomb exploded inside the In Box restaurant, located in the center of the city of Beni, where more than thirty people were celebrating the Christmas party, according to two witnesses interviewed by AFP. Debris of chairs, tables, glasses and bottles are strewn in the restaurant, noted an AFP correspondent.
On June 27, the explosion of a homemade bomb in a Catholic church injured two women. The same day, the bomb carrier was killed in the explosion of his device near a bar and not far from a mosque. The day before another machine had exploded, not far from a gas station, without causing damage.
The authorities accused the ADF rebels of being responsible for these attacks in the town of Beni.
North Kivu and Ituri have been under siege since early May, an exceptional measure which gave full powers to the military, but which has so far failed to stop the abuses by armed groups.
In these two provinces of the DRC, the Congolese and Ugandan armies have been carrying out joint military operations since November 30 against the positions of the rebels of the Ugandan group of Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The deadliest group in the DRC, the ADF are also accused by Kampala of being responsible for recent attacks on its soil, claimed by the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS), which presents this group as its province in Central Africa (ISCAP) .