Congolese forces have killed the leader of an offshoot of a Hutu militia in the restive east of the country, the army said on Sunday, two months after killing the leader of the main faction, according to Reuters.
Juvenal Musabimana led a splinter group of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group founded by Hutu officials who fled Rwanda after orchestrating the 1994 genocide.
His killing is the latest blow to the FDLR, which has been weakened in recent years by arrests of several of its leaders and military pressure from Democratic Republic of Congo’s armed forces, the FARDC, and other militias.
The army “neutralized another radical leader of the FDLR on Saturday the ninth of November at 14:00,” said Guillaume Njike, a Congolese army spokesman.
Musabimana, who was also known by his nom de guerre Jean-Michel Africa, was killed alongside four of his bodyguards following an intense firefight in Binza, North Kivu, near the Ugandan border, Njike added.
Congolese forces killed the leader of the main branch of the FDLR, Sylvestre Mudacumura, on September 18.
The group split in a row over ranks and money in 2007, said Christoph Vogel, a researcher at the conflict research program hosted by the London School of Economics and Ghent University.