The two abandoned buildings are a distant reminder of the presence of the ADF, an armed militia with Ugandan origins that for years has plagued the DRC's east with its bloody attacks.

Over the last year the surrounding area in North Kivu province has become safer in the wake of a joint military offensive, dubbed operation "Shujaa", launched by Kinshasa and Kampala in late 2021.

Herds of cattle and lorries can now travel peacefully along the key commercial axis to Uganda, guarded by trucks from both countries' armies.

But that peace has not come without a cost -- and the fear of the fighters' return lingers.

Shujaa has pushed the ADF, or Allied Democratic Forces, into remote and inaccessible areas across North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri.

There, far from Ugandan and Congolese capitals, civilians have been left at the mercy of the ADF's violent methods.

- 'Lull must continue' -

Near the Ugandan border, Bulongo's mayor Jean-Paul Katembo spoke of "the ordeal" that the town went through, with at least 28 ADF attacks between 2021 and 2024.

With the increased security, a sense of business of usual has returned to Bulongo.

And the local economy, largely dependent on agricultural exports to Uganda, has likewise bounced back.

"This lull must continue so that the population is comfortable," Ricardo Rupandi, civil society president in the neighbouring town of Mutwanga told AFP.

Rupandi said that people now return to the fields to work, but "still don't have the courage to sleep there" like they used do.

The region has previously seen ebbs in the clashes. But these have always been followed by renewed violence, with civilians mostly bearing the brunt.

Several hundred people were killed in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces in 2024.

Meanwhile the Ugandan soldiers taking part in operation Shujaa, said to number between 2,000 and 4,000, do not have the means to maintain a presence everywhere they have recaptured.

- 'Psychologically disturbed' -

Since their arrival in the DRC's restive northeast in the mid-1990s, the ADF's fighters have killed thousands of civilians.

In 2019 the ADF pledged allegiance to IS, which trumpets them as its Islamic State Central Africa Province.

Because of operation Shujaa, local army spokesman Colonel Mak Hazukay warned the ADF are "always on the move" and "don't spend more than two or three days in one place".

That itinerant existence has made them hard to pin down and root out.

Meanwhile in Beni, thousands of people displaced by the violence are still crowded into camps or living with host families.

"Here everyone is psychologically disturbed," said Clara Kahindo Horove, who fled her village two years ago.

The men plan to return to the village soon but "we (the community) are afraid of dying on the way", the woman in her 60s said.

"When the institutions (and) schools re-open, (and) the houses are rebuilt, we can speak of a definitive restoration of peace," Beni civil society member Richard Kirumba told AFP.

- Uganda's 'hidden agenda' -

But distrust between the DRC and Uganda lingers despite their joining forces against the ADF and the good understanding their soldiers have displayed on the ground.

For Kampala, Shujaa is primarily aimed at securing the export of mining and agricultural resources from the DRC's mineral-rich east, according to a report by the Congo Studies Group based at New York University.

Meanwhile Kampala's past interference in its neighbour's affairs meant the DRC "hesitated" to expand Shujaa's area of operations "fearing a hidden agenda from Uganda", according to a United Nations expert report published in January.

In 2005 Uganda was condemned by the UN for violations of the principle of non-interference while its troops were deployed in neighbouring Ituri province.

Twenty years later, Kampala continues to support armed groups there, according to the UN experts.

The Ugandan army sometimes appears to act without any real control from the DRC, according to the UN report.

ADF fighters captured by Ugandan soldiers are usually transferred to Uganda without going through the Congolese justice system, according to UN experts.

"There is a kind of undue trust from the Congolese government" towards the Ugandan side, confirmed Beni's Kirumba.

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