Two policemen were killed and more than 800 inmates escaped on Tuesday night during an attack on a prison by militiamen in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, military sources and experts said Wednesday.
“A group of unidentified Mayi-Mayi attacked the central prison of Kakwangura in the town of Butembo. The first report, which is still provisional, is that two policemen on guard duty were killed,” said Captain Antony Mualushayi, the army spokesman in Beni. One assailant was also killed and ammunition recovered, he added.
The Mai Mai are members of Congolese self-defense groups. According to a prison source who requested anonymity, only 49 of the 872 people held in the prison remained there.
This “attack caused the death of at least two policemen and the flight of all the detainees”, wrote on Twitter the Kivu Security Barometer (KST), an organization that has observers in the area, specifying that “the ADF is suspected”.
Presented by the jihadist organization Islamic State (EI) as its branch in Central Africa (ISCAP in English), the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) group is accused of being responsible for the massacres of thousands of civilians in eastern Congo and of having committed attacks in Uganda.
The ADF is said to be one of the deadliest groups in the eastern region of the DRC, which has been torn apart by violence for almost 30 years. In the DRC, deadly attacks on prisons and escapes of prisoners are often reported.