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Machete-wielding attackers killed at least 14 civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s restive North Kivu province, a local official said Sunday, in a wave of violence plaguing the mineral-rich region.

A further nine people were injured in the assault near the village of Rubaya some 60km north of the province’s capital Goma, regional governor Cosmas Kangakolo told AFP.

He said a battalion of the Congolese army and police officers had been dispatched to Rubaya. “The attackers arrived in my neighbourhood. I hid but two neighbours were killed by machetes,” local resident Pascal said.

An armed Hutu militia known as the Mai-Mai Nyatura has been operating in the Masisi territory, where Rubaya is located. The region is a hub for mining coltan, a key component in cell phones and other electronic equipment. — AFP