According to the source, the attack also wounded at least 41 people in Masisi, a key breadbasket for the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, which fell to the M23 at the beginning of 2025.

"This Friday, a drone from the Congolese armed forces bombed civilian houses in central Masisi. There were six deaths and 41 wounded, some of them seriously," Masisi territory administrator Emmanuel Ndizeye told AFP.

A resident reached by telephone said the situation was "traumatising", with the strike leading to "many wounded".

M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka slammed the strike as an indiscriminate bombardment by the Congolese government in Kinshasa, which the armed group wants to overthrow.

The regional DRC army spokesman had yet to reply to AFP's request for comment.

Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 has seized swathes of the mineral-rich Congolese east with Rwanda's help, displacing hundreds of thousands in a region beset by conflict for more than three decades.

After a months-long lull at the front, the armed group launched a fresh offensive in December, culminating in the capture on December 10 of Uvira, which gave it control of the DRC's land border with its ally Burundi.

Under pressure from the United States, which has sought to broker an end to the long-running conflict, the M23 said on December 17 that it was withdrawing from the city of several thousand people.

Both Washington and Kinshasa have cast doubt on the sincerity of the M23's announcement, and local sources told AFP on Thursday that plainclothes M23 officers had stayed behind in Uvira.

Fighters allied with the Congolese government have been locked in clashes with the M23 across several axes in both North and South Kivu, according to local sources.