Mass Rapes Bring Added Horror to War-Ruined Congo

BUKAVU, Congo (Reuters) - Every kick from the child in her belly is a reminder to Agnes of the night armed men burst into her home and raped her until she fell unconscious.

What local laws remain in Congo's war-ruined east prevent the 20-year-old from having an abortion.

"It is a child of evil, but it is also partly my blood, so I don't know what to do. It torments me," she whispered, explaining she was a virgin before the attack.

So distraught are the 15 women huddled under a tree at a help center in the town of Bukavu that occasionally they vomit at the thought of their experiences.

Those experiences are steadily emerging as a terrifying pattern of mass rape in Africa's biggest war.

Consolate, a 40-year-old mother of eight, was raped on three separate occasions over the past two months, most recently by five armed militiamen who stole what little her family had, including their clothes, four goats and a pig.

"Men who do this are not normal. If I could kill them I would, but it's impossible to catch them," she said, adding that she was reduced to dressing in rags borrowed from a friend.

Such stories are all too common in a region where many families no longer spend the night in their homes, opting instead to sleep in groups in the bush, listening for brutal militias and rival rebel factions.

An estimated 2 million people have died in Congo's four-year conflict, most from starvation and disease.

But hidden by taboos and the fear of confession, the added horror of sexual violence used as a weapon of war is only just emerging.

"I can't think of anywhere else where the situation is as bad as it is here," said one Western aid worker.

"Forget Afghanistan ( news - web sites) under the Taliban, eastern Congo is probably the worst place in the world to be a woman. And the thing is, very little is being done to change that."

The region was plunged into anarchy when thousands of Hutu extremists known as "Interahamwe" fled into Congo's wilds after committing the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Rwanda and an allied Congolese rebel army pursued them, triggering a war that has seen Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia support Kinshasa's central government, which has also fought rebel groups backed by Uganda.

The sheer number of factions has dampened hopes for peace that were raised last month by a deal under which Rwanda would pull out troops in exchange for the disarmament of the Hutus.

The cycle of violence in which civilians are caught also includes traditional Mai-Mai warriors, fighting against the rebels of the Rally for Congolese Democracy who nominally control a third of the mineral-rich state.

"Rape is frequently used against women to punish husbands suspected of collaborating with the Mai-Mai," said a report by a Canadian human rights organization on abuses by the rebels.

"Some combatants are said to have boasted about having infected the women they raped with AIDS ( news - web sites)," it said.

Up to 60 percent of the soldiers and militia fighters in eastern Congo are thought to be infected with the HIV virus ( news - web sites) that causes AIDS, pointing to future catastrophe for the rape victims and their country -- even if peace returns.

In the remote gold-mining town of Shabunda, local people reckon 80 percent of the women have been raped. Others have had their genitals mutilated with sticks, knives, razors and guns.

They attack at night or target women collecting food, water of firewood from fields.

Women and girls are kidnapped as sex slaves and forced to cook, do laundry, and transport looted goods for their captors.

"For many it means death from disease and infection or insanity from the trauma," said Mathilde Muhindo, a nun who runs Bukavu's Olame Center, one of the few places victims can turn to.

"Because rape is socially unacceptable, women are often shunned by their husbands, families and communities," she said.

The center, which has seen a sharp increase in arrivals, tries to provide rape victims with shelter and basic medical care.

But with limited means, it can offer only a meal, a hospital visit and a night's accommodation before the victims like the 15 sitting under the tree must return to the hills where attackers wait to strike again.

"I have to go back because where can I flee to? If I'm going to die, I will die at home," said 15-year-old Janine. She was forced to carry goods and then raped by three Interahamwe. She escaped only after they got drunk.

Nobody really knows how many women have been raped because of the social stigma attached, though aid workers say increasing numbers are coming forward because they realize they have nothing more to lose.

"I am the object of mockery in my community," said Agnes. "It's a double insult because I'm pregnant and I have no hope of getting a husband or reclaiming my dignity."

I am sorry, but you'll have to stop posting stories like this. The US media won't print them and the international media shouldn't either. The media agenda is to continue to present the plight of blacks in America and to vigorously support the claims of the black thugs and shysters for reparations.

The media position is undermined by evry story like this that fails to paint modern day Africa as a paradise. Look at all the stories about Cuba. It is a paradise on earth, sure, a little short on luxuries, but none-the-less, Fidelito's paradise for all who dwell therein.

Stories about Africa should follow the same track. We must urge that the descendants in America whose ancestors were stolen by Republicans are far worse off than they would have been had their ancestors not have been taken. These stories that describe the savagry, poverty, disease and inhumanity in the Africa of today, it could be argued, make the situation of blacks in America seem, well, much better. That is not in the agenda of the American media.

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