Pygmy militia attacks against Bantu villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo last week claimed the lives of 27 people, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The three attacks, around the town of Manono in the southeastern province of Katanga, occurred between February 9 and 15, Felix-Prosper Basse, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, told a press conference.

Since 2013, Bantu landowners have been locked in conflict with the hunter-gatherer Pygmies in the district of Taganyika, particularly around Manono, often fighting with traditional weapons like bows and arrows and machetes.

The killings mark a resurgence in the violence in the Bantu majority region which had subsided over the past few months.

Deadly attacks on civilians, and the looting and torching of entire villages, are frequent.

Since colonial times, cohabitation has never been easy between the two, with the Bantus accused of exploiting the Pygmies, paying them meagre wages, or in alcohol and cigarettes, and generally treating them as inferior beings.

In Katanga, and in DR Congo in general, the Pygmies' nomadic lifestyle is increasingly under threat from deforestation, mining and extensive farming by the Bantus.

Driven out of their natural environment, the Pygmies are increasingly dependent on the Bantus for their subsistence. The latter, seen as having the support of local authorities, are accused of denying the Pygmies their rights.

Pygmy communities can also be found in the vast forests to the north of the country where despite strained relations with other communities, violence is rare.