WUNRN
Please see TWO parts of this WUNRN
release on Abused Congo/DRC Women Migrants in Angola.
Direct Link to Document:
ANGOLA: SYSTEMIC RAPES AND VIOLENCE
AGAINST EXPELLED CONGOLESE MIGRANTS
THE WOMEN TESTIFY
Medecins Sans Frontieres
December 2007
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ANGOLA-DRC:
Activists Denounce Political Apathy Towards Migrant Rape Victims
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DRC women are being systematically raped by soldiers in
Angola, claims MSF |
KINSHASA, 7 December
2007 (IRIN) - Human rights activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
have accused their government and that of Angola of turning a blind eye to
reports of widespread rape and other abuses of DRC migrant workers in
neighbouring Angola.
“The situation seems to be getting worse but the Angolan
and Congolese authorities we have repeatedly approached show no political will
to end the situation,” said Floribert Chebeya, who heads Voice of the
Voiceless, a DRC NGO.
Amigo Gonde, president of the Human Rights Defence
Association, was equally critical of the DRC government. "Rape is used
here in Congo as in other countries as a psychological weapon to defeat the
enemy and humiliate ... Similarly, by these acts, Angola wants to reinforce the
idea that Congolese people are and should remain inferior.
"The DRC government has an obligation to protect
its citizens both on its own soil and abroad but instead our leaders display
weakness when it comes to talking to other countries, especially Angola, where
it plays the beggar," he added, noting the abuses had been going on since
2004.
The issue gained widespread media attention on 5
December when Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international humanitarian
organisation, released a statement denouncing what it described as “the pervasive
and systematic use of rape and violence perpetrated by the Angolan army during
the expulsions of Congolese migrants working in diamond mines in the Angolan
province of Lunda Norte”.
“Women are systematically raped by several soldiers,
some of them raped in front of their children. This abhorrent practice
continues and is repeated over several days as they are transported to the
border,” MSF director of operations Meinie Nicolai stated.
The head of the Belgian branch of MSF in DRC, Josep
Prior, told IRIN that the aim of the “rape and violence against Congolese [was
to] make them leave” Angola.
The MSF statement included testimonies from 100 women
who claimed to have been violated several times during their expulsion from
Angola.
"They are often gang-raped by Angolan soldiers, one
after another, often repeatedly and sometimes in front of other
expellees," said Fabienne de Laval, MSF-Belgium's field coordinator in
Kasai Occidental province, one of the border areas where tens of thousands of
those expelled from Angola have been arriving.
"In Kamako village, we have organised a place to
take care of women who come with major difficulties, such as sexually
transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and other complications," said
De Laval.
Some women said they had been forced to leave their
Angolan husbands behind after being threatened by soldiers.
"What we denounce is not the expulsions per se, but
the systematic practice of putting people in police cells, sometimes for a
whole week, raping them every day, leaving them without food or water, and
sometimes transporting them in lorries where they are again subjected to
violence," said Prior.
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Many people die en route and their corpses are thrown
into the bush, asserted the MSF report. According to testimonies quoted by
Prior, men, women and children had died of starvation.
Figures compiled by the UN show that 44,000 Congolese
have been expelled from diamond mining areas of Angola since January 2007. An
estimated 400,000 DRC citizens still live in those Angolan areas despite the
problems. Activists have accused the Angolan military of committing the same
abuses on DRC territory.
Asked about the MSF report, Angola's ambassador to DRC,
Mawete Joao Baptista, would not comment.
DRC human rights activists held marches in July to
denounce the evictions and violations and handed protest memoranda to both the
Angolan embassy and the DRC authorities.
Angolan authorities began to expel illegal immigrants
from the country in December 2003, targeting illegal workers in its diamond
mines near the border with the DRC.
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