SUMMARY
The violence in Ituri province, northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), has deep historical roots in ethnic tensions between the Hema and Lendu communities, primarily related to land ownership and access to resources. Major outbreaks occurred in 1972, 1985, and between 1999 and 2003, during which time ethnic violence escalated into a localized war. After a period of relative calm, fighting resumed in December 2017, triggered by the suspicious death of Father Florent Dhunji, a Lendu priest, which was blamed on the Hema. This event reignited community-level grievances and provoked retaliatory attacks. A key actor in the renewed violence was the URDPC, a Lendu militia group. After the death of its leader, Justin Ngudjolo, in March 2020, the URDPC fragmented into multiple factions, all colloquially referred to as CODECO. One of these was the Defense Force Against the Balkanization of Congo (FDBC), which carried out extensive and systematic attacks on civilians, particularly in gold-rich zones of Djugu territory.
FDBC claimed to protect the Lendu community and to resist what it described as a “foreign-backed” conspiracy to balkanize the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, its attacks overwhelmingly targeted unarmed civilians, including internally displaced persons (IDPs), women, and children. While the group occasionally framed its actions as retaliation against rival militias such as Zaire self-defense group or as part of a struggle to control contested mining zones, outside actors attributed these acts to deliberate terror campaigns aimed at consolidating territorial control, extracting resources, and deterring returnees and rivals.
FDBC engaged in widespread mass killings, abductions, arson, looting, and forced recruitment. Victims were often burned alive in homes, executed at roadside ambushes, or killed in surprise early morning raids. Civilians were routinely abducted, both for hostage-taking and forced conscription. Entire villages were razed, with hundreds of homes torched and public infrastructure, such as clinics, schools, and police posts, destroyed. FDBC systematically attacked internally displaced persons camps, mining villages, and remote settlements, taking advantage of the limited or delayed presence of the Congolese army. In many cases, attacks followed a consistent pattern: entry into the community from their base in Damas, indiscriminate killing, house burning, looting of motorcycles and mining equipment, and mass abduction.
FDBC operations were concentrated in Djugu territory, particularly around the localities of Mbidjo, Blanquette, Kablangete, Mungwalu, and Andisa—areas rich in artisanal gold mining. The group often launched attacks from strongholds such as Damas, and repeatedly struck villages abandoned by security forces.
FDBC first became active as a one-sided actor in UCDP data in 2022, when the one-sided violence resulted in at least 25 civilian deaths. The threshold was reached on 16 January when FDBC burned houses, looted shops and killed civilians in different villages in the Djugu territory.
