Losing the Taste for Life
This strategy resulted in a lot of victims, women, children -- and men that attempted to protect their wives.
"Pauli," from Kaniola village, lost his virility for two years due to trauma accumulated after he was raped in front of his wife and children in 2002. The mistake he made was to try to protect his wife against a band of rapists. This man was crying for two years. You could see the way tears were flowing from his eyes, with a deep feeling that he was no longer a man. After intensive counseling sessions and chemotherapy at Panzi hospital, this man recovered but he is carrying within himself a deep wound. He has lost the taste of life.
In villages, health centers are regularly looted, and materials as well as drugs are taken. Since 1998, Congolese, especially people from the east (South Kivu, North Kivu, Maniema and Ituri) can not assess good health care.
International crisis groups in the area report that at least 1000 persons are dying everyday in Congo due to lack of medicine. Most of them die because of the endemic diseases in the area such as malaria, cholera, HIV and post traumatic stress syndrome diseases.
Until now, in a lot of villages (90% of the villages), people are sleeping in the bush where they expect to be more safe. They prefer the coldness and the tropical rain than to be raped or killed. Children and women are the most affected. In fact, in these conditions, children are supposed to continue going to school after a whole night in the bush, and women are expected to continue farming activities. Unfortunately, teachers are living also in the same conditions, and the whole education system is touched. In a lot of villages, schools just stopped.
Spoils of War
When it's time to harvest crops from the field, most of the time it's the Interahamwe or other militias that come, and after they have chased the villagers using extreme violence, they take everything; leaving people dying with hunger. Rare are the families that manage for now to have one meal per day in the villages. The World Vision Fund is supplying nutritional centers for sick children and adults because of malnutrition.
From reports in the field, a lot of women and girls are said to have been raped during their displacement at some check points by militias. It's not understandable or believable from outside as the situation in Congo is defined as "post conflict" -- meaning the elections have been held in 2007 and the country has a democratically elected government.
Several reports estimate the number of raped women and girls up to 200,000 (new figure added). 90% of the survivors lost everything during the assault and have to live on charity. In the deep east Congo, it's hard to determine the number of victims as the area is not accessible.
Hellish Statistics
From a survey I made in 2004 in four different zones of Kivu Province, among 807 raped women interviewed, 75% of the victims were raped once, 22% twice, and 3% twice. Typically, 2-4 perpetrators were involved in 63.4% of the incidences. But in quite a number of incidents, there were 5-10 perpetrators.
In 90% of cases, women are raped in front of their children and husbands. The ages of the victims fluctuated between six months and 80 years, and were mostly women. The cases of raped children less than one year old were reported during the brief capture of Bukavu by rebels in 2004.
Different types of rape are observed in Congo.
Systematic Rape During a Village Attack
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
