Local officials reported on Tuesday at least 22 civilians were killed on Monday night after rebels attacked a village in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The attack took place in the Mwenda village of the Beni territory, eastern DRC, and was perpetrated by the Ugandan rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

Donat Kibwana, the administrator of the Beni territory told, "ADF rebels attacked the village of Mwenda on Monday around 1900 GMT, killing 22 civilians with machetes," he also that the death toll may rise in near future.

Fulbert Kasairo, a local official, told that a dozen other villagers were kidnapped by the assailants to transport stolen goods to other localities.

"Our region is a powder keg, a cemetery. We live in a dying house while the authorities are disinterested," Kasairo said in a discontented manner.

The ADF rebels -- originally from Uganda’s northeast in the 1990s -- have been killing and terrorizing Congolese civilians, as well as UN representatives in eastern DRC for the past years.

On Monday, authorities told they discovered 21 bodies "in a state of decomposition" in the localities of Lose-lose and Loulo in the same region after the passage of the rebels.

The modus operandi of these rebels is rather uncommon: they kill peasants with knives, usually in the evening around the bush, when they are returning from the fields or in the village after nightfall.

According to the UN, illicit exploitation of natural resources continues to be a root factor of conflict in the eastern part of the country.

Most of the militia parties have set aside their political demands and are indulged in illegal mining and mineral trafficking.