Human Rights Voices

While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, January 26, 2011

U.N. uncovers more mass rapes in DRC

GENEVA, Switzerland, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Reports of mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo uncovered by Doctors Without Borders only paints half the picture, a U.N. investigation found.

Doctors Without Borders in a report issued in early January reported that armed forces in the DRC raped more than 30 women on Jan. 1 in South Kivu province.

A report by U.N. human rights officials and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the DRC, however, said that at least 35 women were raped and 32 people were injured by Congolese troops during the reporting period Jan. 1.

Lt. Col. Kibibi Mutware, a commander in the Congolese army, and several of his fellow commanders are allegedly behind the latest outbreak of violence, the U.N. agencies report. Government forces are also accused of raping at least 32 women on New Year's Eve.

"In the face of these atrocities, the high commissioner calls on the government to consider establishing a vetting mechanism in the context of the security sector reform," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement.

The United Nations reported about 15,000 women were raped in the eastern part of the republic in 2009 and said it was believed the number is probably higher because many cases go unreported.