Rape on the rise in Goma area, MSF says

An international medical relief organization says the number of women raped by rebels has risen dramatically in camps around Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders — MSF), said in a statement issued on Wednesday that it received 95 victims of sexual assault between December 3, 2012 and January 5, 2013.

An official from the Paris-based medical charity said on Friday that most of the rape incidents occurred on a hill where internally displaced women from the nearby camps go to gather wood for cooking.

Thierry Goffeau, the leader of the MSF mission in South Kivu province, where the March 23 movement (M23) rebels have set up a parallel government, said MSF deplored the “lack of involvement by bodies responsible for the protection of the civilian population.”

He stated that the increased presence of Congolese government troops and armed groups close to the camps “created chronic insecurity, where rapes are common currency.”

“On Thursday alone, we had 27 cases,” Goffeau added.

On December 31, 2012, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose an arms embargo on M23 and another rebel group known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

The sanctions freeze assets of certain people linked to the groups and bar two M23 leaders — the rebel group’s president, Jean-Marie Runiga, and one of its military commanders, Lt. Col. Eric Badege — from travel.

The M23 rebels seized the eastern city of Goma on November 20 after UN peacekeepers gave up the battle for the frontier city, which is home to about one million people. The rebels withdrew from the city on December 1 under a ceasefire accord.

Since May 2012, over 900,000 people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. Most of them have resettled in Congo, but tens of thousands have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.