17 decapitated bodies have been found in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to local sources, her killing is attributed to the Islamist rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

According to a Red Cross representative, soldiers discovered the bodies on Thursday on the Ituri River in the province of the same name.

Accordingly, a Red Cross team later visited the site, which is in the Irumu area.

A spokesman for the aid organization said he suspected ADF fighters of the killing.

The French news agency AFP could not independently verify the information.

A resident of the area told AFP it was "difficult to identify the victims" because their decomposition was already advanced.

He also thinks it is likely that the ADF militia was responsible for the killing of the 17 people.

The Islamic State (IS) jihadist militia describes the Allied Democratic Forces as its regional offshoot in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

ADF fighters are accused of killing thousands of civilians in the east of the country.

Among other things, they are said to have killed at least 20 people in an attack on May 11th.

A total of more than 120 armed groups are active in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and massacres of civilians are the order of the day.

The government in Kinshasa has imposed a state of emergency on Ituri and the neighboring province of North Kivu since May 2021.

However, attacks by armed groups continue.

According to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, this has now led to the displacement of 72,000 people in a very short time.

A spokeswoman for the UNHCR sees this with great concern.

The people who have fled fighting between government troops and militias in the past few days are in urgent need of help, she said in Geneva.

Their homes were often looted.

According to the UNHCR, at least 170,000 residents have been displaced since fighting between the former Tutsi rebel organization M23 and government troops in North Kivu province flared up again in November.

Around 7,000 were reported to have sought shelter in neighboring Uganda last week.

The country is already home to more than 1.5 million refugees.

Women and girls are exposed to sexual violence and blackmail by the fighting groups while fleeing.

Many children would be separated from their families.

The rebel organization M23, which was crushed by the army in 2013, today accuses the government in Kinshasa of not complying with commitments regarding the demobilization of fighters.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, for its part, accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23, which the government in Kigali again denied on Thursday.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) also drew attention to the situation.

According to them, fugitives dragged themselves on foot to the suburbs of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.

There are already a total of 1.9 million displaced people in the region.

The armed clashes flared up again just as those who had been displaced earlier began to return.

Thousands of those who have now fled lack shelter, food and clean water, putting them at risk of disease.

The fighting hampered humanitarian aid.

According to UNHCR data, at least 1.9 million people live as displaced people in North Kivu alone.

In total, Congo has 5.6 million internally displaced persons, more than any other African country.

The UN organization estimates the cost of humanitarian aid at 225 million US dollars (210 million euros).

Of these, 16 percent are funded.