Famine has been declared twice in the past 13 years: in Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017
Residents of Kalembo village said that rebels killed 16 people and torched houses in an attack on Wednesday that a local human rights group blamed on the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan armed group active in the region.
The statement said Islamic State was responsible for the attack in the village about 40 km (25 miles) east of the city of Beni.
The ADF has operated in the dense forests near the Ugandan border for more than three decades and began killing civilians in large numbers in 2014.
The group has publicly aligned itself with Islamic State, but a June report from the United Nations found no evidence of direct support from the Islamic State to the ADF.