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GOMA. — Nineteen people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in a machete attack in a region of the Democratic Republic of Congo that has been repeatedly attacked by Ugandan rebels, according to an updated death toll on Thursday.

“We deplore the deaths of 18 people plus a pregnant woman, who was beheaded,” Amisi Kalonda, administrator of the Beni area where the attack took place, told AFP.

In all, nine of the victims were beheaded, he added. On Wednesday, Kalonda had reported five dead in the attack in Mbau, around 30km from the town of Beni in DRC’s eastern North Kivu province. North Kivu borders Uganda and Rwanda. Kalonda said the victims were killed “as they were going to work in the fields” on Wednesday morning.

Kalonda blamed the attack on rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces and National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU).

The rebels, who have been active in eastern DRC since being driven out of their homeland in 1995, are suspected of a spate of machete massacres in the Beni area since late last year that have killed around 300. — AFP.