Kinshasa - A total of 100 women became victims of gang rape allegedly committed by the rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) eastern, international aid workers and local media reported on Thursday (06/23/2011).The attack happened between 10 and 12 June in a village about 40 kilometers north of the town of Fizi in South Kivu, said medical foundation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told Reuters by telephone.
"We have medical teams in the area. We just want to start a mass vaccination program when we began to hear stories of rapes associated with multiple events," said Megan Hunter, head of the medical mission in South Kivu, MSF's Dutch branch.
"We are treating more than 100 women who said they had been raped or suffered trauma," he said. He added that they are working together with officials of the Ministry of Health will ensure the number of Congolese victims.
Mass rape was allegedly committed some 200 rebels have been integrated into the Congolese army before escaping this month, said a UN-backed Radio Okapi.
On Monday (6/20/2011) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the soldiers were reported to have looted health centers and cattle in the same area where the rape occurred.
UN peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO, could not confirm the rape, but said they were investigating the report, said a spokesman.
Eastern Congo remains highly unstable after the end of the war in 2003 that left more than five million people were killed. Many armed groups acting in the region as well as the rebels and the Congolese armed forces accused of atrocities against civilians.
Earlier this year, a colonel in the Congolese army, was jailed for 20 years for ordering his men to rape more than 60 women in the town of Fizi.
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