Enjoy UN investigates claims of mass rape by DR Congo rebels

UN investigates claims of mass rape by DR Congo rebels
The United Nations is investigating claims that rebel fighters raped more that 150 women and baby boys in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thousands of women are raped each year in DR Congo, the UN says
The attacks happened over four days within miles of a UN base, a US aid worker and a Congolese doctor said.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon is sending two top aides to the country to help investigate the alleged assaults in the country's volatile eastern region.

Mr Ban also urged the Congolese government to investigate the attacks.

Aid workers and UN representatives knew that rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages in eastern DR Congo the day after the attack began on 30 July, the International Medical Corps (IMC) said on Tuesday.

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The secretary-general is outraged by the rape and assault”

Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary-General
They could not get into the town until the rebels left, said the IMC's Will Cragin.

According to reports, the rebels gang-raped nearly 200 women and some baby boys over four days before leaving.

The region lies approximately 10 miles (16km) from a UN peacekeepers' base.

Mr Ban is sending Atul Khare, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, immediately to DR Congo to help investigate, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

He also ordered his special representative for sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallstrom, to take charge of the UN's response to the attacks.

A UN joint human rights team confirmed allegations of the rape of at least 154 women by fighters from the Rwandan FDLR militia and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels in the village of Bunangiri, Mr Nesirky said.

"The secretary-general is outraged by the rape and assault. This is another grave example of both the level of sexual violence and the insecurity that continue to plague Congo," he told the Associated Press.

'World rape capital'
The victims are receiving medical and psychological care.

Ms Wallstrom condemned the rapes. She said: "It should be noted that this incident represents a very extreme case in terms of its scale and the level of organisation of the attacks.

The "terrible incident" confirmed her findings during a recent visit to Congo of the "widespread and systematic nature of rape and other human rights violations."

DR Congo has a shocking reputation for sexual violence. In April, a senior UN official said it was "the rape capital of the world".

A report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu province had been gang-raped by armed men.

More than than half of the assaults took place in the victims' homes, the report said, and an increasing number of attacks were being carried out by civilians.

More than 8,000 women were raped during fighting in 2009, the UN says.

Eastern DR Congo is still plagued by army and militia violence despite the end of the country's five-year war in 2003.

UN peacekeeping troops have been backing efforts to defeat the FDLR, whose leaders are linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and who are operating in eastern DR Congo.
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Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels

Enjoy Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels

The UN says at least 5,400 women in the DRC are believed to have been raped in 2009 alone [
Almost 200 women have been raped by rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during a four-day seizure of a town, aid groups have said.

A US aid worker and a Congolese doctor told the Associated Press on Monday that the attacks occurred within miles of a UN peacekeepers' base

Will Cragin of the International Medical Corps (IMC) said that aid and UN workers knew fighters from Rwandan rebel FDLR group and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages the day after the attack began on July 30.

Three weeks later, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo issued no statement about the attacks and said on Monday that it was still investigating.

Cragin also told the Associated Press that his organisation was only able to get into the town, which he said is about 16km from a UN military camp, after rebels withdrew on their own on August 4.

Systematic rape

"There was no fighting and no deaths, Cragin said, just "lots of pillaging and the systematic raping of women".

Luvungi is a farming centre on the main road between Goma, the eastern
provincial capital, and the major mining town of Walikale.

MONUC was based in the DRC since 1999 to help the government gain control of the east
Four young boys were also raped, according to Kasimbo Charles Kacha, the district medical chief.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the peacekeeping mission has a military operating base in Kibua, about 30km east of the village, but villagers were prevented from reaching the nearest communication point as FDLR fighters blocked the road.

Civil society leader Charles Masudi Kisa said there were only about 25 peacekeepers and that they did what they could against some 200 to 400 rebels who occupied the town of about 2,200 people and five nearby villages.

"When the peacekeepers approached a village, the rebels would run into the forest, but then the Blue Helmets had to move on to another area, and the rebels would just return," Masudi said.

"During the attack [the rebels] looted [the] population's houses and raped several women in Luvungi and surrounding areas," Stefania Trassari, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said
on Monday.

"International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that FDLR systematically raped the population during its four-day stay in Luvungi and surrounding areas. A total of 179 cases of sexual violence were reported," Trassari said, adding all of the cases
were of rape against women.

Harrowing accounts

The IMC said it was treating the victims.

"Nearly all reported rapes were described as having been perpetrated by two-to-six armed men, often taking place in front of the women's children and husbands," it said in a statement.

The United Nations has withdrawn 1,700 peacekeepers in recent months in response to demands from DRC government to end the mission next year, but still supports operations against several armed groups in the country's east.

Roger Meece, the new head of the UN mission called MONUSCO - which replaced predecessor MONUC - said last week that the rebels were still a huge threat to the population and the UN would keep trying to wipe them out.

Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said in April the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the country would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult".

Accurate figures for sexual violence are hard to come by as many rapes are unreported but according to the UN, at least 5,400 women reported being raped in neighbouring South Kivu province in the first nine months of 2009 alone.

MONUC had been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of the DRC as it struggles to re-establish state control over the vast central African nation.

A war from 1998-2003 and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country.
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Saw the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange accused of rape

Enjoy Wikileaks founder Julian Assange accused of rape

Julian Assange was cited as saying the release of the allegations was "deeply disturbing"
Swedish authorities say they have issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, on accusations of rape and molestation.

The warrant was issued late on Friday, said Karin Rosander, communications head at Sweden's prosecutors' office.

Swedish police have been trying to contact Mr Assange, but have not yet been able to, she told the BBC.

Wikileaks, criticised for leaking Afghan war documents, quoted him saying the charges were "without basis".

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The message, which appeared on Twitter and was attributed directly to Mr Assange, said the appearance of the allegations "at this moment is deeply disturbing".

In a series of other messages posted on the Wikileaks Twitter feed, the whistle-blowing website said: "No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police", and that it had been warned to expect "dirty tricks".

More documents due
Last month, Wikileaks published more than 90,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

US authorities criticised the leak, saying it could put the lives of coalition soldiers and Afghans, especially informers, at risk.

Mr Assange has said that Wikileaks is intending to release a further 15,000 documents in the coming weeks.

Ms Rosander said there were two separate allegations against Mr Assange, one of rape and the other of molestation.

She gave no details of the accusations. She said that as far as she knew they related to alleged incidents that took place in Sweden.

Media reports say Mr Assange was in Sweden last week to talk about his work and defend the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.

The allegations were first reported in the Swedish newspaper Expressen.
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