The Congo army reported that it had killed 13 militiamen during clashes with an unidentified group in the north-eastern province of Ituri.
Jules Ngongo, spokesman for the army, said the clashes took place in the villages of Jemi and Penyi, in the territory of Djugu. During the attack, a Congolese soldier was killed and two others were wounded. Control operations are still underway in the area where the battle took place, so Ngongo specified that "the number of victims could change".
Ituri is the last part of the Democratic Republic of Congo to be the scene of bloodshed since President Joseph Kabila, refusing to step aside in 2016 at the end of his term, undermined the legitimacy of the state.
Ituri was one of the places where the civil war of the Congo began in 1998, a conflict during which in five years about 5 died, millions of people were killed, mostly due to hunger and disease.
Many fear that history may repeat itself due to the numerous murders that took place between the "Lendu" group and the "Hema" ethnic groups, fueled by the collapse of the government authority and the inability to resolve a long and age-old dispute over land rights.
The International Criminal Court has condemned warlords on both sides of previous fighting in Ituri, but this has not stopped the violence on the ground.