At least nine killed in DR Congo's restive east

At least nine people were killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east where Ugandan rebels have recently staged bloody attacks, a top official has said.
"Nine bodies have been sent to the morgue. The bodies were found deep inside the forest," Julien Paluku, the governor of the restive Nord-Kivu province, said yesterday.
"We are carrying out searches to see if there are any other bodies" in the forest, located in the north of the province between the towns of Beni and Mbau, he said.
The victims were killed on Thursday.
According to the Civil Society of Nord-Kivu, an NGO based in Beni, the deaths were part of new "carnage" perpetrated by Ugandan rebels. It put the toll at 50, citing a survivor but this information could not be independently verified.

Rebels from Uganda's ADF (Allied Democratic Forces)have been active in the mountainous border region between the two countries since 1995 after being driven out of Uganda by President Yoweri Museveni.

They have been blamed for atrocities, pillaging villages and forcing locals to fight for them, while funding themselves from the lucrative smuggling of wood.
In January, the Congolese army and the United Nations began an offensive against the ADF, the last major group active in the region.
However, the rebels have bounced back since the brutal death in August of Congolese army chief General Jean-Lucien Bahuma.