Suspected Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels have killed 14 government soldiers and five civilians in an ambush in DR Congo's volatile east, officials and a local source told AFP on Tuesday.

The ADF staged an ambush in the village of Banju-Banju in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeastern Ituri province exactly a week ago, they said.

"We lost 14 FARDC personnel," Colonel Matadi Muyapandi, a local police administrator, told AFP, using the French acronym for the DRC's armed forces, adding that it took several days to recover and bury the bodies.

Lieutenant Jules Ngongo, spokesperson for the Congolese army in the province, confirmed the toll.

Rebels 'still present in the bush'

"Our men were in the middle of an operation against the ADF in the forest" when they were ambushed, he said.

Five civilians were also killed, Vincent Telemboli, a representative of a local civil group, said.

"The civilians' bodies have not yet been recovered. They are still in the bush, where the rebels are still present," he said.

Since 2021, the Ugandan army has been deployed in the northern part of North Kivu and in Ituri to fight the ADF alongside Congolese forces.

The ADF, which operates in small groups and hides in eastern DRC's dense forests, has killed more than 275 people since July, the vast majority of them civilians, according to an AFP tally.