A total of 22,000 cases registered in province in 2023; in first five months of 2024, figure had already reached 17,000.
Healthcare providers in the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) treated more than 17,000 victims of sexual violence over just five months last year, according to a United Nations report.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s annual report on conflict-related sexual violence, released on Thursday, said the cases were registered in the province of North Kivu between January and May last year, as fighting between Congolese forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels intensified.
“Many survivors sought care after violent sexual attacks, including penetration with objects, perpetrated by multiple perpetrators,” said the report, which charted crimes like rape, gang rape and sexual slavery.
The conflict, which has killed thousands this year alone and displaced millions, is still ongoing despite a Qatar-mediated agreement between DRC and M23 last month that was supposed to pave the way to a ceasefire, running parallel to United States efforts to broker peace between Kinshasa and Kigali.
Last year’s figure marked a continued surge in sexual violence as the Rwanda-backed M23 rampaged through the east, with a total of 22,000 cases registered throughout 2023. That figure was more than double the previous year’s tally.
In 2023, the spike in violence occurred as the conflict spilled over from North Kivu into South Kivu, forcing UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO to withdraw from the latter.
The report said that MONUSCO’s operations narrowed, “owing to military operations and widespread insecurity”. The mission had documented 823 cases of sexual violence in 2024, affecting 416 women, 391 girls, seven boys and nine men.
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The UN said that 198 of last year’s cases were perpetrated by DRC “state actors”, including the army. It found that “M23 elements”, which “continued to receive instructions and support from the Rwanda Defence Force”, were implicated in 152 cases.
According to the report, survivors reported that they were exposed to the threat of sexual violence while searching for food in the fields and areas around displacement sites.
Many displaced women had resorted to prostitution to survive, “highlighting the nexus between food insecurity and sexual violence”.
Denis Mukwege, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his work combating sexual violence in DRC, told The Times newspaper this year: “When you have people raping with complete immunity – and think they can go on and on without any consequence, nothing will change.”
Guterres’s report charted violations in 21 countries, with the highest numbers recorded in DRC, the Central African Republic, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan.
While women and girls made up 92 percent of victims, men and boys were also targeted.