Study: 3.8 million dead in Congo

[Jolie Rouge]

Thursday, December 9, 2004 Posted: 9:05 PM EST (0205 GMT)

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- Six years of continuing conflict in Congo have claimed 3.8 million lives, nearly half of them children, with most victims killed by disease and famine in the still largely cut-off east, the International Rescue Committee said in a study released Thursday.

The international association for years has produced the most widely used running estimate of deaths in Congo, Africa's third-largest nation.

More than 31,000 civilians continue to die monthly as a result of the conflict, despite peace deals that ended major fighting in the 1998-2002 war, the New York-based group said, citing mortality surveys prepared with the assistance of on-site teams of physicians and epidemiologists.

Congo's death toll remains a third higher than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa 18 months after major peace deals, the International Rescue Committee said.

Most deaths come from easily treatable ailments, it said, citing measles epidemics known to have swept populations in the foreign- and rebel-held east during the war.

"In fact, Congo is the deadliest war the world has seen since the end of the Second World War, and ... these staggering figures have gone largely ignored by the media and world leaders," Dr. Richard Brennan, director of the organization's health unit, told Associated Press Television News in New York.

Researchers used a scientific random selection meant to produce a representative sampling. The surveyed 19,500 households across Congo and projected death tolls based on specific accounts of deaths within those households.

The survey found 2.7 deaths every month out of every 1,000 children under 5, a child mortality-rate twice that even of sub-Saharan Africa.

Deaths among children accounted for 45.4 percent of the 500,000 estimated deaths from conflict in the latest deaths between the survey period of January 2003 and April 2004.

Sporadic but persistent clashes and tensions continue to limit civilian access to humanitarian assistance, food supplies and basic medical care.

Seventy percent of Congo's estimated 60 million plus people still have no secure access to food, international agencies estimate.

The size of Congo -- a nation as big as Western Europe -- and the length of Congo's conflict have helped heighten the death toll and limit outside awareness of civilian suffering.

Starting in 1998, the conflict in Congo quickly drew in the armies of five other African nations. Neighboring Rwanda and Uganda and allied Congolese rebel groups held control of the east and northeast. Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia held the west for the government.

Fighters in rebel- and foreign-controlled areas throughout the war blocked normal trade routes, plundered food stores and blocked farmers from producing crops, according to aid groups and refugees.

A rare visit to cut-off central Congo at the height of the war, by The Associated Press to the front-line town of Kabinda, found war-displaced emerging from hiding in the bush bringing emaciated children, adults dying of measles and women dying of complications from childbirth.

The group's last survey, released in April 2003, estimated 3.3 million deaths.

A U.S. National Academy of Sciences committee approved the original methodology, which largely is the standard process for estimating suffering from crises in areas that have been all or largely cut off.

For the survey, researchers used a scientifically randomized selection to pick 10 health zones in west Congo and 11 in east Congo, and further scientific random selection to pick households within the zones for interviewing.

While the methods of the survey have been largely accepted, some statisticians have cautioned against overprecision in estimating death tolls when on-the-ground documentation of deaths is not possible, as in many wars.

Congo's government, working with a U.N. peace force growing to 16,000, is working to secure government control across the country.

The key targets are militia groups roaming the forests and volcanic east, a lawless area of few roads that saw little government presence even before the war.

Congo's failure to rein in militias seen as threatening regional security helped spark the war.

The U.N. and others accused occupying nations of prolonging it to plunder Congo's gold, diamonds and other wealth.


http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/12/09/congo.ap/index.html

[schsa]

There are some places where nothing will stop people from fighting and killing each other. Add disease and famine and people will die. So much could be prevented if it were safe for care groups to go in and assist but no one is going to send aid workers anywhere that there is a chance that they will be killed before they can help.

It is a country totally out of control not unlike the Ivory Coast and so many African nations. Too bad because there is a great possibility that this could be a rich and productive nation.

[Jolie Rouge]

Donors push restraint on Congo
Friday, December 10, 2004 Posted: 2:15 PM EST (1915 GMT)

KIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) -- International donors urged Rwanda on Friday to exercise restraint in its relations with neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo amid reports Rwandan soldiers had crossed the border to attack rebels.

Key financiers including the European Union, United Nations, the United States and Sweden meeting in the Rwandan capital side-stepped a decision on whether to cut aid in the event of unilateral military action by Kigali.

Kigali has repeatedly threatened to send soldiers across the border to carry out surgical strikes against rebels based in Congo, some of whom took part in its 1994 genocide.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo said last week it was "almost certain" Rwanda was involved in attacks on rebels who hide out in Congo, raising fears of renewed war in a region where 4 million people have died from genocide and war-related hunger and disease in the past decade.

Rwanda says it is impatient with delays to international promises to help disarm the rebels. "One would hope the government of Rwanda would respect the integrity of Congo, exercise restraint and resist the urge to take unilateral action against Congo," Kamau Macharia, UNDP representative and donor coordinator told Reuters.

But the donors said the latest developments would not affect their relations with Rwanda, which relies on external financial aid to fund 90 percent of its development budget and 50 percent of its general budget. "Overall, Rwanda has registered remarkable economic growth which must be supported continuously," Kamau said.

Separately, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto said after a visit to both countries that the United States is confident Rwanda and Congo were committed to peace. "Both countries as well as Uganda have shown commitments and we can move forward. I am very hopeful that we will have progress," Yamamoto said on Friday in Kinshasa. He did not specify what commitments had been made.

Rwanda's economy grew 5.1 percent in 2004, rebounding from 3.5 percent in 2003 on the back of better performance in the coffee, services and industrial sectors, according to the country's budget presented last week.

Rwanda has already invaded Congo twice in the past decade, in 1996 and 1998.


www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/africa/12/10/rwanda.donors.reut/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

U.N. peacekeepers arrested for sex crimes
Monday, February 14, 2005


UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The Moroccan mission to the United Nations has announced it arrested six U.N. peacekeeping soldiers in Congo accused of sexually abusing local girls and discharged the contingent's commander.

Fred Eckhard, the U.N. secretary-general's spokesman, on Monday said the announcement over the weekend showed "the Morrocan authorities attach as much importance to eradicating sexual abuse within U.N. peacekeeping missions as does the U.N. The mission hopes that the vigorous and public reaction of Morocco will serve as an example and that other troop contributing countries will follow," he added.

There have been more than 150 allegations of sexual exploitation of girls as young as 13 by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo.

Annan last Wednesday urged the Security Council to add at least 100 military police to the peacekeeping mission in Congo to help prevent sex abuse by the U.N. forces.

Eckhard said other measures had been taken, including improved surveillance around U.N. military camps, a curfew and the shuttering of local stores where soldiers interacted with locals.

Allegations of abuse first surfaced in 2004 and the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services said abuse by peacekeepers was ongoing.

According to last month's report by the U.N. watchdog agency, peacekeepers regularly had sex with Congolese women and girls, usually in exchange for food or small sums of money.

Sexual activities continued even while the investigation was continuing in the eastern town of Bunia between May and September 2004, the report said.

The United Nations currently has about 11,500 soldiers, 150 civilian police and 700 international staff in Congo trying to support the country's fragile peace process and help it move toward free elections later this year. In October, the council authorized an increase in the U.N. mission to 16,700.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/02/14/un.congo.peacekeepers.ap/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Thousands flee Congo plague outbreak
Friday, February 18, 2005

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- A rare form of plague has killed at least 61 at a diamond mine in the remote wilds of northeast Congo, and authorities fear hundreds more who fled into the forests to escape the contagion are infected and dying, the World Health Organization said Friday.

Eric Bertherat, a doctor for the U.N. health agency, said the outbreak has been building since December around a mine near Zobia, 170 miles (300 kilometers) north of Kisangani, the capital of the vast Oriental province.

Nearly all the 7,000 miners have abandoned the infected area and sought refuge in the world's second-largest tropical rain forest, all but cut off from the outside world.

Security fears -- mainly from bandits and militia leftover from Congo's five-year war -- have also slowed international response, Bertherat said.

Plague is spread mainly by fleas, and causes an infection in the lungs that slowly suffocates its victims. If caught in time, it can be treated with antibiotics.

Bubonic plague is the most common strain, transmitted to humans who touch infected animals or inhale the bacteria in the air.

Pneumonic plague -- the kind in the current outbreak -- is rarer, but also more easily transmitted from person to person through coughing or touch. Bertherat, speaking to reporters by telephone from Geneva, said plague is commonly found in this region of northern Congo, but this large an outbreak was unusual.

Unlike deadly ebola, which is also found in the dark forests of Congo, Bertherat said this outbreak of plague wasn't likely to spread too quickly given the remote and isolated terrain. "It's still a large concern," said Bertherat, "because these are cases moving elsewhere."

Bertherat and a 10-member team of WHO doctors will arrive in Kisangani on Monday to prepare a journey into the forests. He said doctors from the aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres were already there, treating miners they could locate.

The forests have long been both a refuge and a death trap for Congolese running from war, disaster and disease. More than 1 million people still live rough in the forests after fleeing Congo's devastating 1998-2002 war. Aid groups say nearly 1,000 people still die every day from war-induced starvation and disease.



According to the WHO, the incubation time for plague is two to six days. Victims develop a fever and cough. Breathing becomes difficult as lungs fill with fluid.

Death can come as quickly as 48 hours.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/02/18/congo.plague.ap/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

WARNING : GRAPHIC - NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH










U.N.: Congo Militias Grilled Victims Alive
By EDDY ISANGO

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) - Militiamen grilled bodies on a spit and boiled two girls alive as their mother watched, U.N. peacekeepers charged Wednesday, adding cannibalism to a list of atrocities allegedly carried out by one of the tribal groups fighting in northeast Congo.

The report came as a key U.N. official said the ongoing violence in Congo, claiming thousands of lives every month, has made it the site of the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The commander of U.N. forces in Congo, Gen. Patrick Cammaert, presented a report on abuses allegedly committed by the Patriotic Resistance Front of Ituri. ``Those responsible for atrocities will be brought to justice,'' Cammaert said.


Peacekeepers have also begun working to cut off weapons supplies to the group, which apparently entered the country from neighboring Uganda, he said. Members of the group were suspected of killing nine U.N. peacekeepers in a Feb. 25 ambush. On March 1, gunmen fired on Pakistani peacekeepers and the peacekeepers fought back, killing up to 60 fighters, U.N. officials said at the time.


Congo became a battleground for six nations during a 1998-2002 war that killed some 50,000 people directly and another 3 million through strife-induced hunger and disease. But sporadic fighting continues between militiamen, rebels and government troops in the lawless northeast.


Jan Egeland, head of U.N Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said Wednesday that the fighting in Congo had overtaken Sudan's embattled Darfur region as the world's most serious humanitarian crisis. ``Measured in human lives lost, I think that Congo is the number one problem in the world today,'' Egeland told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.


About 3 million Congolese are now in acute need of assistance and as many as 30,000 people are dying every month from conflict-related causes, Egeland said. The United Nations says Sudan's Darfur region remains a major crisis, estimating that about 180,000 people have died there since October 2003 and a further 1.8 million have been displaced. Egeland said as many as 10,000 people may be dying there every month as a result of violence, disease or malnutrition.

The Darfur conflict began in February 2003, when rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated government to win more political and economic rights for the region's African tribes.

The allegations of cannibalism in the U.N. report were from a summary of testimony from witnesses gathered over a year from hundreds of people who had been kidnapped by militias in the region. The report said that some victims were killed by torture and decapitation. Those not killed were held in labor camps and forced to work as fishermen, porters, domestic workers and sex slaves. ``Several witnesses reported cases of mutilation followed by death or decapitation,'' the report said.

The U.N. report included an account from Zainabo Alfani in which she said she was forced to watch rebels kill and eat two of her children in June 2003. The report said, ``In one corner, there was already cooked flesh from bodies and two bodies being grilled on a barbecue and, at the same time, they prepared her two little girls, putting them alive in two big pots filled with boiling water and oil.''

Her youngest child was saved, apparently because at six months old it didn't have much flesh.

Alfani said she was gang-raped by the rebels and mutilated. She survived to tell her horror story, but died in the hospital on Sunday of AIDS contracted during her torture two years earlier, the U.N. report said. The mother gave her account in February, but the U.N. waited to publish them until after her death for fear she would become a target for reprisal.


The new International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, said this week that its first cases will deal with war crimes committed in eastern Congo.


03/17/05 00:36

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20050317%2F0037423086.htm&sc=1105&photoid=20050302BUA02D&ewp=ewp_news_0305congo

[Jolie Rouge]

Angola's Virus Death Toll Reaches 126

LUANDA, Angola (AP) - Angola's death toll from an Ebola-like virus has climbed to 126, the Health Ministry and World Health Organization said Thursday, making it the deadliest recorded outbreak of the rare Marburg disease.

There is no vaccine or cure for Marburg, which spreads through bodily fluids and can kill rapidly, according to the World Health Organization. The virus was identified only last week as the death toll spiraled.

The worst outbreak of the virus on record killed 123 in neighboring Congo between 1998 and 2000. That was also the last known outbreak.

Angola has recorded 132 cases of the Marburg virus over the past six months, the ministry and WHO said in a joint statement.


Almost all the deaths have occurred in the northern province of Uige, which lies on the border with Congo and since last year has received tens of thousands of refugees returning home after fleeing to the neighboring country to escape Angola's civil war.


About three-quarters of cases have occurred in children under 5, and a small number of health care workers are among those adults infected, WHO said last week.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said Wednesday it was sending experts to the Southwest African country.


Officials in Uige have canceled school classes for 30 days and advised residents to take precautions including extra attention to cleanliness and sanitation.


Angola's public infrastructure was wrecked by a two-decade civil war which ended in 2002. Sanitation facilities are inadequate or nonexistent, and hospitals are understaffed and poorly equipped.


The CDC scientists will assist WHO with outbreak investigation, infection control and laboratory diagnosis.



03/31/05 17:12


http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0001/20050331/1712543717.htm

[Jaidness]

this is so sad, how it has been basically ignored, I have been following this for a while now and have urged my politicians to do something about it. Is this to be our generations holocaust? 3.8 million, just makes me go cold, how can anyone ignore this? While the whole Terri S thing has raged many have died for lack of involvment, lack of media attention, lack of outrage by the masses...thank you Jolie for trying to bring this matter to the publics attention by posting this.

[schsa]

I don't think that it is being ignored as much as other countries know that the civil war that is going on will endanger anyone who tries to help out. Aid is available but it cannot get to the people who need it because the rebels will take it first and kill anyone who gets in their way.

[Jolie Rouge]

Angola's Virus Death Toll Reaches 126

LUANDA, Angola (AP) - Angola's death toll from an Ebola-like virus has climbed to 126, the Health Ministry and World Health Organization said Thursday, making it the deadliest recorded outbreak of the rare Marburg disease.

There is no vaccine or cure for Marburg, which spreads through bodily fluids and can kill rapidly, according to the World Health Organization. The virus was identified only last week as the death toll spiraled.

The worst outbreak of the virus on record killed 123 in neighboring Congo between 1998 and 2000. That was also the last known outbreak.

Angola has recorded 132 cases of the Marburg virus over the past six months, the ministry and WHO said in a joint statement.


Almost all the deaths have occurred in the northern province of Uige, which lies on the border with Congo and since last year has received tens of thousands of refugees returning home after fleeing to the neighboring country to escape Angola's civil war.


About three-quarters of cases have occurred in children under 5, and a small number of health care workers are among those adults infected, WHO said last week.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said Wednesday it was sending experts to the Southwest African country.


Officials in Uige have canceled school classes for 30 days and advised residents to take precautions including extra attention to cleanliness and sanitation.


Angola's public infrastructure was wrecked by a two-decade civil war which ended in 2002. Sanitation facilities are inadequate or nonexistent, and hospitals are understaffed and poorly equipped.


The CDC scientists will assist WHO with outbreak investigation, infection control and laboratory diagnosis.



03/31/05 17:12


http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-PLS&idq=/ff/story/0001/20050331/1712543717.htm

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20050404/capt.sge.dwo24.040405184147.photo01.photo.default-384x364.jpg

[Jaidness]

ugh that Marburg virus is scarey stuff!

[firechick]

My step dad (only dad I ever knew)went on a missions trip back in 1987 to Africa with BBFI (Bible Baptist Fellowship International) and he was passing a tribe performing the ritual of "live burning" of an 11 year old girl who refused to have sex with her dad. These nations like us have thier own way of punishment and I can't imagine what on earth was going through thier minds when they made these "laws" How awful to have to watch that. My daddy told me that and I cried for those little girls over there that must put out or their lives will be put out. I was a 17 then and had just married my ex dh when daddy left. He came back a totally changed man and I am so close to him now. He is still a missionary but travels all over the world.
Kelly

[Jolie Rouge]

UN expert: Rape rampant in Congo
By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jul 30, 12:11 PM ET

GENEVA - Sexual atrocities in Congo's volatile province of South Kivu extend "far beyond rape" and include sexual slavery, forced incest and cannibalism, a U.N. human rights expert said Monday.

Yakin Erturk called the situation in South Kivu the worst she has ever seen in four years as the global body's special investigator for violence against women. Sexual violence throughout Congo is "rampant," she said, blaming rebel groups, the armed forces and national police.

"These acts amount to war crimes and, in some cases, crimes against humanity," said Erturk, who just came back from an 11-day mission there.

Most of the worst abuses have been committed by rebel groups, many of whom fled to Congo after taking part in the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s, she said.

"The atrocities perpetrated by these armed groups are of an unimaginable brutality that goes far beyond rape," she said in a statement. "Women are brutally gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters."

The statement continued: "Frequently women are shot or stabbed in their genital organs, after they are raped. Women, who survived months of enslavement, told me that their tormentors had forced them to eat excrement or the human flesh of murdered relatives."

Saying the situation required immediate attention from Congo's government and the international community, Erturk reported that 4,500 cases of sexual violence had already been counted so far this year. The U.N. investigator said the actual number of incidents was probably much higher.

The Panzi hospital, a specialized institution in Bukavu near the Rwandan border, sees about 3,500 women a year suffering fistula and other severe genital injuries resulting from atrocities, Erturk said.

The mineral-rich eastern reaches of Congo, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, are the most unstable in the country, and civilians are often killed as rival militias clash.

U.N. peacekeepers helped end a wider 1998-2002 war in Congo that engulfed six neighboring countries, and the nearly 18,000-strong force currently in Congo is the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping operation.

While rebels commit most of the worst abuses, Erturk said government forces and national police are responsible for nearly 20 percent of all cases of sexual violence reported.

Army units have deliberately targeted communities suspected of supporting militia groups "and pillage, gang rape and, in some instances, murder civilians," she said.

Erturk, who also visited the country's Equator province and Ituri district, said she was "shocked" to discover that police and armed forces respond to unrest with indiscriminate reprisals.

The tactics include "pillaging, torture and mass rape," she said, citing a December incident when 70 police officers took revenge for the torching of a police station in Karawa by burning the Equator town, torturing civilians and raping at least 40 women, including an 11-year-old girl.

No police officer has been charged or arrested in relation to the atrocities, she said, adding that similar operations have since been carried out in Bonyanga and Bongulu, also in Congo's northwest.

"The justice system is in a deplorable state," Erturk said. "It is overwhelmed even by the limited number of cases, in which women brave all obstacles and dare to report sexual violence. Reports of corruption and political interference in the judicial process are widespread."

Erturk will report her findings in September to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070730/ap_on_re_eu/un_congo_women;_ylt=AgxjkJKZlCLGRrllrC_e2uX9xg8F

[Jolie Rouge]

45,000 people dying a month in Congo

By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 22, 6:20 PM ET

DAKAR, Senegal - Some 45,000 people die each month in Congo as the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis has failed to improve despite five years of relative peace in the Central African nation, according to a report released Tuesday.

An estimated 5.4 million Congolese died between 1998 and April 2007 because of conflict, most from the rampant disease and food shortages stemming from fighting, the report said.

The study found that life is still alarmingly precarious for Congolese despite the end of the 1998-2002 conflict that pulled in armies from half a dozen surrounding countries, and the country's first free and fair elections in more than four decades in 2006.

"When war ended in Congo there was the same level of dysfunction without the violence," said Les Roberts, a Columbia University professor who helped conduct the first surveys in Congo with the International Rescue Committee.

The study was conducted by the IRC and Australia's Burnet Institute, which researches epidemiological disease.

Congo's monthly death rate of 2.2 deaths for each 1,000 people — essentially unchanged from the last survey in 2004 — is nearly 60 percent higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa, according to report.

The vast majority of deaths were from nonviolent causes, such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia or malnutrition, the report said. Outbreaks of easily treatable diseases like measles and whooping cough have been a major killer of children in Congo, a nation the size of Western Europe.

The group The figures cast a shadow over ongoing negotiations for a peace deal between warlords and the government in Congo's long-volatile east.

The country's hilly eastern region, long the source of turmoil in the country of 66 million and still plagued by fighting, was one of the few to post a decrease in its death rate compared with the previous survey.

Richard Brennan, one of the study's lead authors, said he believed the reduction was related to a beefing-up of U.N. forces in the region and increased funding by humanitarian agencies working to stem the threatening public health disaster. The fighting has forced some 800,000 people to flee their homes in the last year.

On Monday, the government and representatives from armed groups active in eastern Congo had said that they had agreed in principle to the deal to end decades of conflict and expected to sign the document by late Tuesday.

But the plan faltered during discussions over last-minute amendments that dragged on into Tuesday evening.

"The consultations will continue because there have been disagreements concerning amendments to the text," said Sekimonyo Wamagangu, a spokesman for the conference. He said the groups hoped to find a compromise Wednesday.

According to a draft agreement made available to reporters, a cease-fire would take effect in eastern Congo immediately upon signing.

The draft also provides for a U.N.-monitored buffer zone between various armed groups and government forces, the logistics of which would be worked out by a technical committee to be established.

The militia fighters also would be given amnesty from prosecution for insurgency or acts of war, but not for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Even if the deal is signed, and held to, the statistics point to a tough road ahead.

"It's going to require years of engagement from the Congolese people, the Congolese government and the international community," to reduce deaths, Brennan said.

___

Associated Press Writer Eddy Isango in Goma, Congo contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080122/ap_on_re_af/congo;_ylt=Aq8zmoAv6tgI.tKdbFD4x_.9IxIF

On the Net:

International Rescue Committee: http://www.theirc.org

[Jolie Rouge]

48 women raped every hour in Congo, study finds
Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press – 1 hr 8 mins ago

DAKAR, Senegal – The African nation of Congo has been called the worst place on earth to be a woman. A new study released Wednesday shows that it's even worse than previously thought: 1,152 women are raped every day, a rate equal to 48 per hour.

That rate is 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes reported in one year by the United Nations.

Michelle Hindin, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health who specializes in gender-based violence, said the rate could be even higher. The source of the data, she noted, is a survey that was conducted through face-to-face interviews, and people are not always forthcoming about the violence they have suffered when talking to strangers. "The numbers are astounding," she said.

Congo, a nation of 70 million people that is equal in size to Western Europe, has been plagued by decades of war. Its vast forests are rife with militias that have systematically used rape to destroy communities. The analysis, which will be published in the American Journal of Public Health in June, shows that more than 400,000 women had been raped in Congo during a 12-month period between 2006 and 2007.

On average 29 Congolese women out of every 1,000 had been raped nationwide. That means that even in the parts of Congo that are not affected by the war, a woman is 58 times more likely to be raped than a woman in the United States, where the annual rate is 0.5 per 1,000 women.

Previous estimates of the number of rapes were derived from police and health center reports in the nation's troubled east where the conflict is concentrated. The authors of the study used figures from a government health survey and pooled data from across the country. The highest frequency of rape was found in North Kivu, the province most affected by the conflict, where 67 women per 1,000 had been raped at least once. "The message is important and clear: Rape in (Congo) has metastasized amid a climate of impunity, and has emerged as one of the great human crises of our time," said Michael VanRooyen, the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

Margot Wallstrom, the U.N. special representative for sexual violence in conflict, welcomed the study. "Conflict-related sexual violence is one of the major obstacles to peace in the DRC," she said in statement, using the initials for Congo. "Unchecked it could disrupt the entire social fabric of the country."

Wallstrom said the figures in the study are higher than the U.N.'s because it covers all sexual violence — including domestic and intimate partner violence — not just from military actors. U.N. figures tend to be conservative because they must be verified by the organization itself, she said. Wallstrom said she consistently stresses that "the number of reported violations are just the tip of the iceberg of actual incidents."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110512/ap_on_re_af/af_congo_rape

It is worth mentioning that we are not talking about rape in terms of what happens in our "civilized" western mind set. According to the HRW (human rights watch) website these women are brutalized. They have their genitals burned and mutilated, they are impaled with foreign objects through their perineum and often die from this. They are held down and raped by men up to 20 at a time to the point where they are literally ripped apart. And the violence isn't just towards women. This same report discusses how babies and toddlers are given this same treatment. The savagery and brutality is astounding and almost inconceivable. I feel fortunate everyday to have been born in the USA, and not have to be faced with such horror

[Jolie Rouge]

End impunity for U.N. peacekeepers who rape and abuse
Nita Bhalla – Thu Apr 14, 4:32 am ET

NEW DELHI (AlertNet) – Those who use rape as a weapon of war in volatile regions across the world must be punished, says the United Nations, but activists say the global body must also end impunity of its own peacekeepers who are guilty of such crimes.

According to the U.N., sexual violence by government forces and armed rebels increasingly is being used as a cheap, effective tactic to terrorise communities trapped between armed groups or even after a peace deal has been brokered.

From the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the Darfur region of Sudan to the heavily militarised eastern regions of Myanmar, rape and sexual abuse of women and girls are becoming commonplace, say humanitarians.

"The changing nature of war and conflict has put women and children on the front line -- not as soldiers, but as victims," Margot Wallstrom, the U.N.'s first Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said last week in New Delhi.

"Women very often cannot choose to hide or stay at home -- they have to go and fetch water, they have to get firewood, they have to make sure they can support their families. So even if they know an armed group is in the vicinity, they have to go out and that means often they are attacked."

Wallstrom, who was appointed last year, cited the example in eastern DRC where hundreds of women were brutally raped by rebels in the town of Luvungi last August, adding that one of the best ways to stem sexual violence was to end impunity for those guilty of such atrocities.

But while women's rights activists have welcomed such statements, many say the U.N.-- and its 192 member states -- should also look at holding accountable its own 110,000 currently deployed peacekeepers.

SEXUAL ABUSE BY "PROTECTORS

Over the last decade, the U.N. has had its share of sex scandals where its trusted peacekeepers -- deployed in hot spots across the world -- have been implicated in sexual violence against innocent civilians.

From the remote forested villages of Eastern Congo, to the streets of the Ivory Coast's capital, Abidjan -- unimaginable reports have surfaced of the blue helmets-- trusted to protect populations-- raping local women and abusing children.

In 2001, Jordanian peacekeepers in East Timor reportedly were involved in sexually exploiting young Timorese boys and raping women. In 2005, reports emerged of Nepalese peacekeepers, deployed in DRC, accused of using food and money to pay girls as young as 12 to have sex with them.

In 2008, a study by the British branch of the international charity Save the Children said that in southern Sudan, Haiti and Ivory Coast it had found widespread sexual abuse of children, some as young as six, by peacekeepers, as well as aid workers.

Senior U.N. officials say such instances are rare, adding that they are in no way comparable to the systematic atrocities committed in places like the DRC by armed groups and national armies during a conflict.

But they admit that such misconduct can impact the credibility of the organisation.

"While any single rape or sexual abuse by peace keepers is unacceptable and too many, given the number of soldiers and number of instances we have, if you look at the number compared to what is happening in Eastern Congo, there is no way you can compare the two," said Anthony Banbury, Assistant Secretary-General for Field Support in U.N. Peacekeeping, recently in Delhi.

"This kind of sexual behavioural violence hurts not only the victim. Its terrible for the United Nations, our reputation and our ability to work with those populations if we are perceived to be hurting them."

NO PEACEKEEPERS ON TRIAL

Officials say training peacekeepers on sexual violence is conducted prior to deployment, but, with a turnover of 300,000 troops annually, resources at the U.N. are challenged.

Wallstrom, who was in Delhi to speak at international conference on peacekeeping, said the U.N. advocated a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual misconduct, but admitted there were limitations on what it could do to punish the guilty.

"This is a voluntary contribution by the member states, so what we can do as the U.N., we can take them out of service and we can send them back home," said Wallstrom.

"And then it is up to every member state to make sure there is follow-up. On that, we don't have leverage or we don't have any powers to influence to that."

However, activists say there is little investigation, let alone prosecution by national governments when the accused soldier returns, and most remain working in the military or police service.

The U.N. has no power to impose any follow-up, activists say, adding that the world's 114 peacekeeping-contributing nations are an tremendous resource that the global organisation can ill-afford to upset.

(AlertNet is the world's humanitarian news site run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. For more AlertNet stories, visit http://www.trust.org/alertnet)

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