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Cape Town — Democratic Republic of Congo women have told chilling accounts of how they were raped and abused by soldiers during the 2012 war in Minova.In an Unprecedented documentary, Seeds Of Hope, to be premiered at the on-going Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, in London, rape victims and rapists openly talk about their “shocking” experiences.
According to the Daily Mail, drunkenly clutching AK47s, 2,000 Congolese soldiers descended on Minova in November 2012 with one objective – to rape. And they did. But in the documentary, two of the perpetrators defend their actions. They say they acted under the instructions of their commander.
One of the perpetrators says he raped because “my commander started to rape first”.
The attack was nothing new to the women of the DRC where according to the American Journal of Public Health, 48 women are raped every hour.
One of the rape survivors says she doesn’t know the faces of those who raped her.
“How can you see someone who is hitting you in the eyes? How will you know someone who’s inserting a gun barrel in your mouth and then another one in between your legs? Then he leaves and another enters,” she says.
Another DRC rape survivor who will be present at the summit told BBC that the effect of rape is with her on a daily basis.
The horrific accounts are a snapshot into the enormous challenge Angelina Jolie and British Foreign Minister William Hague have vowed to tackle during the summit aimed at ending sexual violence during war. The summit is the largest meeting ever held on ending sexual violence in conflict.
The event comes just a month after 37 of the soldiers arrested for the Minova rapes were acquitted of rape as a war crime.
Only two of the defendants were found guilty.
Meanwhile, A gunbattle erupted yesterday between soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo and rival Rwandan forces on their volatile border, local Congolese officials said.
The fighting began before dawn in Kanyesheza, about 20km northeast of the provincial capital Goma, and lasted over four hours, the officials said. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.
According to one local government official, DRC forces opened fire after one of their soldiers was abducted by Rwandan forces in the border zone.
Rwanda is accused by the United Nations of backing rebels in the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.
“I heard shooting… people panicked,” said one local resident who did not want to be named.
But the governor of the province of North Kivu, Julien Paluku, sought to play down the fighting.
“There was shooting between elements from the Rwandan army and the FARDC [the Congolese army] in Kanyesheza,” he said. — AFP.
derick.khumalo