Armed men have raided a jail in the town of Butembo in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, releasing all 370 prisoners, military sources told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from east DR Congo, said the Congolese army and the town’s mayor confirmed the raid, but that there were conflicting reports as to who was responsible for the incident late on Saturday night.
The North Kivu province of eastern DR Congo has been hit by gruesome violence over the last 10 days, with officials and local rights groups saying that about 80 people have been killed.
The blame for many of the attacks has been levelled at the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a secretive Ugandan rebel group hiding out in the neighbouring country. It has terrorised the area for much of the last two decades.
On Thursday, about 26 people were slaughtered with machetes in Beni, while 50 km away in Eringeti, another 24 people, mostly women and children, were killed when militia entered the town and used machetes, axes and hoes to kill them.
“The Congolese military said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) were responsible for the jailbreak but the mayor of the town says the attack on the prison was conducted by ordinary bandits,” Al Jazeera’s Webb said.