Congo: Rights group documents mass rapes, killings

Kelsey McGalliard
April 10, 2009
4:00 pm


At least 90 women have been raped and 180 villagers killed over the past two months by rebels as well as government forces in volatile eastern Congo, a top human rights group said in a report Thursday. New York-based Human Rights Watch said it documented the rapes, killings and burning of dozens of villages by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR. That force is made up primarily of Rwandan nationals who fled across the border into Congo after orchestrating Rwanda's 1994 genocide of a half-a-million people.. "The FDLR are deliberately killing and raping Congolese civilians as apparent punishment for the military operations against them," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, researcher at Human Rights Watch and an expert on Congo. Among the attacks documented is the murder of a 10-year-old girl who was battered against a brick wall in the village of Kibua on Jan. 27 — one of the rebels' former bases. Dozens of other civilians were hacked to death by the rebels.While the majority of the killings are being carried out by the Rwandan militia, Human Rights Watch also found evidence of major abuses by the Congolese army, which is chronically ill-disciplined.Last month, a group of women from the town of Ziralo were stopped by troops at a checkpost. They gang raped them. One of the four women was six-months pregnant and suffered a miscarriage as a result of the rape, said the rights group.
These attacks are way out of control. It’s hard to believe that any human being could do such horrific acts. It really upsets me but what is even worse is thinking about if it will ever stop. This is their way of life and it is what they do and unfortunately it will keep going on until there is a big enough force to stop it. Africa is typically not the focus of most people around the world. It is though starting to be talked about with the rise of college and young adult’s interest in helping the civilians in need. I wish that everyone would realized that yes we are having problems economically but we are not being thrown about and killed like they are. I hope that in the future these problems will be resolved and the world will finally realize what the real problems are.

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