After murder attempt, doctor Mukwege says he will return to DR Congo

Denis Mukwege, an award-winning Congolese gynecologist, says he plans to return to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) even after escaping an assassination attempt there last week.

“The next step for me is to return to Congo,” Mukwege said in Stockholm on Thursday at a press conference organized by Swedish Pentecostal churches (PMU), which helps to finance the Panzi hospital in Bukavu in the eastern DRC, AFP reported.

“I came here because what happened to me was difficult for my daughters, and I had to take them away from the place where they were traumatized,” said the doctor, who is the founder of the Panzi hospital, a pioneering clinic for rape victims in the eastern Congo.

Over the past ten years, more than 30,000 rape victims have been treated at the hospital.

Mukwege, whose work treating thousands of rape victims earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, was “evacuated” from the eastern city of Bukavu on October 27.

On October 25, five gunmen attacked Mukwege in Bukavu.

The doctor said one of his security guards was killed in the assassination attempt.

Mukwege, 57, has received the King Baudouin Africa Development Prize, while the Carter Foundation has named him a “citizen of the world.”

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack.

“Dr. Mukwege’s extraordinary and heroic work has saved the lives of tens of thousands of Congolese, many thousands of them women and girls who have been the victims of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He continues to be a force for good, and Panzi Hospital a haven for the most vulnerable,” Ban said.

The eastern Congo has experienced interminable cycles of violence since 1998.

The war in the Congo has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.5 million people dead.