BENI, Democratic Republic of Congo, March 4 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed Sunday in an ambush by suspected Ugandan rebels in Beni, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), security sources said.

Suspected rebels of the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) also kidnapped eight others in the ambush on the Eringeti road, according to the sources, who requested anonymity.

Ugandan rebels are active on several roads in Beni territory where they regularly attack civilian transport vehicles.

Active for more than 20 years in this part of the country, ADF rebels have killed thousands in the province of North Kivu.

The DRC military recently started a large-scale operation against the rebel group.</s>Seven people died in a raid by suspected Ugandan Islamist rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the latest in a string of deadly cross-border attacks, officials said Sunday.

"Six people were shot dead and another was stabbed" in the village of Eringeti in DR Congo's restive North Kivu province, a Congolese military source told AFP.

Eringeti's mayor Leon Baungatho said the assault happened around 5.30 pm (1530 GMT) on Saturday.

"We are still grieving," said regional official Noela Kavivutwiraki. "The army needs to redouble its efforts to prevent suprise attacks from Ugandan rebels."

Thought to be behind a string of deadly attacks in North Kivu, the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia stands accused of a number of attrocities in DR Congo.

Congolese authorities and the UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, accuse the ADF of having killed more than 700 civilians as well as combatants in the Beni region from 2014-16.

The ADF is also accused of killing 14 UN peacekeepers in eastern DR Congo on December 7, in the biggest single loss of peacekeepers in nearly a quarter of a century.

The government in January declared it was waging "war" on the ADF and a Congolese militia, the Yakutumba, which is active in South Kivu province, several hundred kilometres (miles) to the south.</s>A Congo-based Ugandan rebel group is to blame for three attacks on United Nations peacekeepers, including one in December that killed 15 Tanzanian troops, the United Nations said on Friday.

The Dec. 8 attack, which also killed five Congolese soldiers and wounded another 53 peacekeepers, on a U.N. base in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s troubled eastern borderlands came amid a rising wave of violence in the mineral-rich area.

A special U.N. inquiry also looked at two other attacks on Tanzanian peacekeepers, on Sept. 16 and Oct. 7, 2017.

The investigation concluded “the three attacks against the U.N. peacekeepers were carried out using a similar modus operandi and that all available evidence points to the ADF as the attacker,” the United Nations said in a statement.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, is still searching for one peacekeeper missing after the Dec. 8 attack.

The ADF has operated inside Congo since the 1990s. Congolese and U.N. troops have conducted repeated offensives against it, but the group always managed to bounce back. It is considered one of the most lethal of Congo’s dozens of armed bands.

The U.N. investigation“found a number of gaps in the training and posture of MONUSCO.”

“The mission did not have an actionable contingency plan to reinforce and extract its peacekeepers,” the U.N. said. “Issues of command-and-control, leadership and lack of essential enablers such as aviation, engineers and intelligence were also major obstacles and need to be addressed urgently.”

Congo and Uganda launched an offensive against the ADF in January that the United Nations warned last month could force nearly 370,000 people from their homes.
Seven people are killed in an attack on the city of Beni, North Kivu, DR Congo by the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group, which crossed the border from Uganda.