Sexual violence against children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has soared in recent weeks, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Thursday, as ethnic tensions and disputes over land and mineral resources fuel fighting in the country.
The organization, known as UNICEF, reported that health care facilities in Goma and the surrounding areas had documented 170 cases of children having been raped in a single week, between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2.
The health facilities reported 572 cases of rape that week, compared to an average of 95 cases in the prior weeks, said Lianne Gutcher, UNICEF’s communication chief for Congo. She added that the violence was being perpetrated by “armed men” belonging to all parties in the conflict.
The aid group Save the Children reported similar trends of children being victimized across eastern Congo.
Rebels, said to be backed by Rwanda, have been seizing huge tracts of the Democratic Republic of Congo at lightning speed. In a month, they have routed Congo’s underequipped army several times and caused more than half a million people to flee. In late January, they rebels captured Goma, a Congolese city of three million people along the Rwandan border.
Rwanda’s president has denied that his country is arming the rebels or that his troops are in Congo.
The rebels, known as M23, say they are protecting ethnic Tutsis, the minority group massacred in a 1994 genocide, some of whom also live in Congo. Experts, however, say the group is after Congo’s rare minerals.
“In North and South Kivu provinces, we are receiving horrific reports of grave violations against children by parties to the conflict, including rape and other forms of sexual violence at levels surpassing anything we have seen in recent years,” UNICEF’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. She added that medical workers were running out of drugs used to reduce the risk HIV infection after an assault.
Save the Children said it had evidence that 18 girls were sexually violated in South Kivu Province, and that a 16-year-old girl was killed resisting armed men.
“One mother recounted to our staff how her six daughters, the youngest just 12 years old, were systematically raped by armed men while searching for food,” she said.
The rebel group’s leaders have vowed to bring order and security to the areas it controls.
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