Militants killed seven people in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday, according to local officials, in the latest strike in the volatile region.

According to a local Red Cross volunteer, CODECO militants assaulted an army post in the Djukoth district of Ituri province's Mahagi territory on Saturday evening.

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According to the anonymous official, seven people were killed near the location, five of whom were children. 

A community leader in Mahagi, Innocent Wabekudu, expressed that CODECO fighters had "savagely killed" the victims.

Lieutenant Jules Ngongo, the Congolese army's spokesman for military operations in Ituri, was not available to provide further information on the attacks. 

Eastern Congo is plagued by dozens of armed groups, many of which are a legacy of regional wars that flared in the 1990s and 2000s.

Ituri province is one of the violence hotspots, where attacks claiming dozens of lives are routine.

The last attack blamed on CODECO killed more than 40 people on April 14 in villages around 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the provincial capital of Bunia.

In April, the United Nations reported that attacks in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo province of Ituri had killed more than 150 people.