DR Congo: Over 200 Raped During Rebel Attack
At least 200 women have been reportedly raped in an incident of mass sexual violence by armed rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), aid groups working in the region have said.
According to the United Nations and aid groups’ sources, armed rebels numbering between 200 and 400 descended on villages of Luvungi town in the North Kivu Province methodically looting and embarked on a systematic rape campaign, assaulting up to 200 women and children over the course of four days.
The rebels reported to be belonging to Rwandan militia Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels were behind the July 30 attack on the farming town. Government forces units stationed in the area have been accused for doing nothing to protect the population.
The International Medical Corps along with government health officials deployed an emergency response in the region as soon as security situation permitted humanitarian intervention to provide care for survivors and other affected and vulnerable people.
The US-based humanitarian agency moved in to provide life-saving medical and psychological support to locals returning from displacement in the forest, where survivors were provided with presumptive treatment for sexually transmitted infections.
The FDLR, a Hutu dissident formation implicated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which over 800,000 people were massacred, operates in remote DRC borders where it continues to stage resistance against UN peacekeepers among other rebel movements.
The UN peace mission in Congo-MONUSCO has said investigations of the pillage are underway as no official statement on the attack has been issued, three weeks on.
In recent months the UN has withdrawn over 1700 peacekeepers following demands to the Security Council by President Joseph Kabila to end the mission by September next year. [ER]