Several villages under the control of Allied Democratic Front rebels in Ituri territory, DRC are adjusting to new administrative measures introduced by the Ugandan Islamist rebels.
Taarifa investigative Desk has established that the ADF are imposing hefty taxes on civilians in the Babila Bakwanza chiefdom, north of the Mambasa territory in Ituri.
According to details each adult will be forced to pay around 30,000 Congolese francs, while farmers would have to pay between U$25 and U$50 to access their fields in certain areas.
The rebels organized a meeting last Friday in Elake, in order to impose their demands on the local population.
Farmers now live in constant fear, some even abandoning their farming activities for fear of reprisals or kidnappings.
“There needs to be an effective deployment of the army in all these areas to free the populations taken hostage and allow the farmers to return freely to their fields,” said Ahombi Penesindano, the head of Babila Bakwanza group.
However, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) have simultaneously announced the reopening of the Nduye–Dingbo road axis, in the north of Mambasa, after several military operations against the ADF.
Analysts believe that ADF maintains significant capacity to cause harm in the remote forest areas of Mambasa.
Between repeated attacks, kidnappings, looting, and now the illegal collection of taxes, some observers fear the gradual establishment of a form of parallel administration imposed by the rebels in certain isolated localities.
