15th May, 2015
Medical Charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) confirmed on Friday in Kinshasa that armed men raped 127 women earlier this month, during a raid on a town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province.
It said more than 60 militiamen assaulted the women during a May 1, attack on the town of Kikamba in the province of South Kivu’s Shabunda region.
MSF said it did not identify the armed group responsible.
Dozens of armed groups operate in eastern Congo, where a 1998-2003 conflict killed millions of people, mostly from hunger and disease.
It said it was on record that both state and rebel forces had been accused by rights groups of using rape as a weapon of war.
It recall that in November, Jerome Kakwavu, a Congolese Army General, became the highest ranking official convicted of rape by a military tribunal in Congo, while he was a rebel commander in northeastern Congo from 2003-2005.