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Soldiers 'rape, abuse women'
06/12/2007 10:05 - (SA)
Kinshasa - An international medical charity on Wednesday accused Angolan soldiers of raping and attacking citizens from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo working in Angolan diamond mines.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) said the abuse targeted Congolese who travelled to Angola to work and were then detained before being expelled.
MSF official Josep Prior said: "MSF denounces the systematic rape and violence against Congolese who come to work in the diamond quarries in the Lunda Norte province."
MSF teams had cared for victims of sexual violence and listened to 100 accounts of "gang rapes and violent acts by Angolan soldiers".
The MSF teams had been located in the Congolese province of Kasai-Occidental, where thousands of expelled Congolese had arrived.
Children watch moms raped
Meinie Nicolai, MSF operations director, said: "At night, neighbourhoods are surrounded by soldiers.
"The men who can flee do so, while others are locked away in cells with the women and children. Women are systematically raped by several soldiers, some with their children watching."
According to MSF, victims told of being detained without food or water, and had been subjected to searches of their body cavities and excrement with the aim of finding diamonds.
They had also spoken of arbitrary executions, as well as deaths from exhaustion.
According to United Nations sources cited by MSF, 44 000 people had been expelled from Angola's diamond zones since early this year, while some 400 000 DRC citizens remained in northern Angola.
The organisation said: "MSF demands that the Angolan government put an end to the atrocities committed by its army on expelled Congolese and insists on an immediate stop to this shameful practice."
Congolese citizens had lived for years in the Angolan regions of Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul, working in diamond mines or ran small businesses.
Since 2004, more than 400 000 illegal immigrants, almost all from the DRC, had been expelled from the mining provinces of Angola in an attempt to battle illegal trafficking of Angolan diamonds.
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