DRC unrest fuels surge in rape

2008-01-03 12:03

Goma - Intense fighting between government and militia forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has led to a surge in rape by fighters from all sides, women and doctors say.

Renewed hostilities between the army and troops loyal to renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda had stoked a volatile crucible of violence in DRC's North Kivu province, where traditional Mai Mai fighters and Rwandan Hutu militia also roamed.

Francoise Mwamasirika, a 45-year-old mother said of Rwandan Hutu rebels who included leaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide against Tutsis: "I was leaving the market and I ran into FDLR on the road. They robbed me of everything and then four men raped me."

Mwamasirika was stunned and barely able to speak when she arrived at a hospital in the South Kivu town of Minova. She said: "I won't go back."

800 000 people displaced

Sexual violence had escalated as hundreds of thousands of people had been forced to flee the safety of their homes - about 400 000 people since August, after Nkunda quit a peace deal, bringing North Kivu's displaced population to 800 000.

DRC's government had called a peace summit for Sunday, but there was little optimism that the chronic fighting would end soon.

Christophe Kimona, a surgeon at Goma's Heal Africa Hospital, repaired the torn and damaged genitals of rape victims. Many could no longer control urination without surgery.

Kimona said: "The number of women we are seeing who have been raped is going up. We see an average of three or four rapes each day. Those are just the ones who arrive at the hospital, we don't know how many are too ashamed to come."

Most rape victims said their attackers were armed groups of rebels or government soldiers.

But Kimona said as rape became so common with the conflict, more civilians were committing rapes too, and the victims were often children.

Doctors to repair torn vagina

Faura Ngabu Noela held her 11-month-old daughter Chaunce close on her lap.

Villagers found Chaunce covered in grass, dirt and blood after a 22-year-old man raped her in her village, Noela said.

"I took her to the local hospital for surgery to repair her torn vagina, but it became infected and I had to bring her to Goma to have another operation and to heal that infection," said Noela.

Now Noela said she was eager to go home. According to Noela: "I just want to return to my other children because with the war, I'm not sure they are safe."

There were laws in place to try rapists, but victims often had little faith in the judicial system, said Marie-Antoinette Okimba, a senior field officer with United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.

Okimba said: "Many believe there is nothing that can be done - especially if they were raped by military."

Okimba said some women were raped on the outskirts of refugee camps after they went looking for firewood.

Dr Kimona said while he could repair many of the women physically, as long as the war continued, the women had little protection.

- Reuters