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Direct Link to Report:
Democratic
Republic of Congo: North Kivu: No End to the War Against Women and Children
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Congo - Armed Groups and Government
Forces Continue to Abuse Women and Children in Congo's North Kivu
©
Amnesty International
29
September 2008
Armed groups are still recruiting
child soldiers to fight in the ongoing conflict in the province of North Kivu,
eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Those child soldiers who attempt to escape have been killed or tortured,
sometimes in front of other children, to discourage further escapes. Children
who are taken captive by the DRC army on suspicion of being armed group
fighters, have faced ill-treatment and torture in military detention.
There is also continuing physical and sexual abuse of women and children in the
conflict, according to the new Amnesty International report, North Kivu: No end to the war against
women and children.
The report is based on research and eye witness testimony collected by an
Amnesty International fact-finding mission in North Kivu in February and March
2008. It says that members of armed groups and government security forces
continue to rape and sexually abuse women and girls and, in a smaller number of
cases, men and boys. Infant children and elderly women are among the victims,
many of whom have suffered gang rape or have been raped more than once.
These abuses are happening despite government and armed group commitments to
immediately end these atrocities in a 23 January 2008 "Act of
Engagement".
According to the Amnesty International report, of the former child soldiers who
had been reunited with their families in North Kivu through a national
demobilization programme, as many as half may since have been re-recruited by
armed groups.
Beaten to death
One former child soldier told Amnesty International how two youths were beaten
to death in front of him and other child recruits "as a lesson to all of
us not to try to escape":
"[The boys] were brought out of a pit in the ground and presented to us
during a training session. [An armed group senior commander] then gave the
order to beat them. Two soldiers and a captain pushed them down into the mud.
When they tired of kicking them…they beat them with wooden sticks. The
punishment lasted 90 minutes, until they died."
Rape has been committed in public and in front of family members, including
children. Some women have been abducted and held as sexual slaves. In many
cases, sexual abuse and rape appear to be ethnically motivated and/or aimed at
terrorizing and demoralizing communities suspected of supporting enemy groups.
One 16-year-old rape survivor described how she had been abducted by two junior
army officers and held captive in an army camp in North Kivu for several days
before she was released. In the camp, she was raped nightly by one of the
officers.
"The other officers and soldiers in the camp didn't seem to care or be
willing to take responsibility", she told Amnesty International. She now
suffers flashbacks and persistent headaches.
In its report, Amnesty International issued comprehensive recommendations to
the armed groups, DRC government and the international community aimed at
stopping human rights abuses. The recommendations include a call on armed
groups to immediately release all children associated with their forces, and
measures to end to the horror of sexual violence.
Background to the
conflict
Despite a peace accord signed in January 2008, armed conflict has persisted in
North Kivu. The fighting involves the regular Congolese army (FARDC) and the
CNDP armed group under the command of a renegade general Laurent Nkuna, as well
as a number of local mayi-mayi militia and the Rwandan FDLR armed group.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the violence.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced by renewed fighting in North Kivu
since 28 August 2008, adding to more than 1 million people displaced by earlier
violence in the region.
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