DHAKA: A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has begun the trial of 215 members of an armed group accused of killing hundreds of civilians in and around Beni town in the country’s northeast.

Prosecutor Kumbo Ngoma said eighty accused members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) from Uganda, Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Sudan, were present in court on Saturday (August 20) in Beni, North Kivu province, where they face charges of massacring civilians.

The remaining suspects will be brought from prisons elsewhere in the country to face trial.

Six suspects who took the stand on Saturday were accused of participating in the killing of 51 people with machetes near Beni town last weekend.

Appearing at the public hearing in blue and yellow prison shirts, the six were charged with “participation in an insurrectional movement, crimes against humanity for murder and terrorism,” said Colonel Jean-Paulin Esosa, who presides over the military court.

The accused admitted at the hearing to having been “at the service of the Allied Democratic Forces”, a news agency reported.

The ADF was founded in Uganda in 1995 and later moved to Congo where it is one among dozens of armed groups seeking control over territory and mineral resources in the east of the country.

One survivor of last weekend’s attack, Eve Kahambu, told that she wanted to see the “murderers’ receive “the severest punishmen”.

Human rights groups put the number of ADF victims at more than 1,000 over the past two years.

Many of the massacres have taken place around Beni and have been blamed on the ADF though independent observers have also blamed government troops.

BDST: 1012 HRS, AUG 21, 2016
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