The prevalence of sexual violence against women in eastern Congo is “almost unimaginable,” the top UN humanitarian official said this weekend after visiting the country’s most fragile region, where militia groups have preyed on the civilian population for years.
John Holmes, who coordinates UN emergency relief operations, said Saturday that 4,500 cases of sexual violence have been reported in just one eastern province since January, though the actual number is surely much higher. Rape has become “almost a cultural phenomenon,” he said.
“Violence and rape at the hands of these armed groups [have] become all too common,” said Holmes, who visited eastern Congo. “The intensity and frequency [are] worse than anywhere else in the world.”
The chronic sexual violence is just one facet of a broader environment of insecurity that still defines eastern Congo after a decade-long war that killed an estimated 4 million people, mostly from hunger and other effects of being driven from their homes.
Tensions have risen in the east following recent clashes between government soldiers and forces loyal to a renegade general, Laurent Nkunda. Nearly 300,000 people have been displaced since December, including tens of thousands in the past several weeks, according to the United Nations.
Holmes spoke at length about the stories he heard from women who had been raped by members of various armed groups, including the Congolese army. The brutality and humiliation involved — women being gang-raped in front of crowds including their husbands, for instance — were particularly disturbing, he said.
