The teenage girl with flowers in her hair crossed her tiny hands to keep them from trembling, and described how she was raped by 10 militiamen.
Ombeni (18) was then kept as a concubine for nine months in the forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. When she became pregnant, the militia removed her baby with a machete and left her alone to die on the forest floor.
”I laid there for one week,” said Ombeni. ”Until insects came out of my body.”
Ombeni is one of thousands of women who are brutally raped each year by fighters in the DRC, another layer of degradation in a war that never seems to end.
In a briefing before the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said the use of rape as a weapon of war was at its worst in eastern DRC and the Darfur region of Sudan.
Egeland said the scale, prevalence and profound impact of sexual violence makes it one of the most serious challenges facing those trying to protect civilians caught up in war. Ensuring rapists are punished and restoring local justice systems is key to addressing the endemic problem, Egeland said.
In the DRC, for those who manage to survive the kidnappings and gang rapes that leave many women dead, there is the clinic at Panzi General Hospital, which is doing wonders to return whatever dignity is left.
The clinic in Panzi, located on the outskirts of the provincial capital Bukavu, treats over 300 rape victims every month, often in various stages of deep psychological trauma.
With funding from the European Commission, the clinic provides medical and psychiatric care, plus counselling to help women re-enter society. Rape victims are often ostracised as outcasts.
The United States government also provides funding to over a dozen local organisations in the region offering counselling, family mediation, medical care and legal representation to victims and their families. Since 2003, the combined programs have helped over 16 000 women.
Most rapes in the area are being committed by Rwandan Hutu rebels, who fled into the eastern DRC after killing in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, said Panzi’s medical director Denis Mukwege.
Generally, militia will circle a village and rape all the women together, he said. Then they’ll choose the young ones and take them as slaves into the forest-covered mountains.
”I had a 60-year old woman who was raped with bamboo. Can you imagine?” Mukwege said.
The tall, well-spoken doctor’s eyes squinted in disgust.
”Yesterday she died.”
”This is not an issue of sexual desire,” he added. ”The aim is to destroy.”
The number of rape cases is increasing, he said. Since January, 1 700 women have been admitted to the clinic. At this rate, the clinic expects to treat about 3 600 women by year’s end — up from 2 700 last year.
Mukwege said this number is only a fraction of the women who are raped every day in outlying villages. Most choose to keep silent, fearing reprisals by militia or banishment.
When victims arrive at Panzi clinic, they’re put in touch with Cecile Mulolo, a psychologist who counsels and befriends the women, who often turn up alone and terrified.
Mulolo, a preacher’s wife with a broad smile, visits a recovery ward where a dozen patients have just received surgery to treat results of brutal rapes. The room is dim, and catheters dangle from each bed.
”I praise God that I’m alive, that I made it here,” said one girl, who’s school books lay wrapped in her bed sheets.
At a halfway home down the dusty road from the clinic, 22 women also recover from operations. The women learn to weave handbags, and how to make bread and soap, in the likelihood their families will reject them and they will have to make their own way in the world.
”This way they feel useful, and maybe can recover some respect from their families,” said Mulolo. ”Even though they were raped, they must know they’re still important.”
Every woman in the home says she was raped by Hutu rebels, who continue to wreak havoc for the DRC as it tries to recover from years of war. Rwanda invaded the DRC twice, in 1996 and 1996, under the auspices of driving the rebels out, but never seemed to catch them.
Many argue there will never be peace in the eastern DRC until the rebels are gone.
Back in her office, Mulolo chats with Nabintu, a 41-year old woman who was raped by militiamen two years ago and contracted HIV/Aids. Her husband banished her to a spare bedroom after the rape, but doesn’t know about her sickness.
”He’ll chase her off if he finds out,” said Mulolo. ”These are the consequences of rape.”
Hearing this, Nabintu buries her face in a scarf and cries.
Mulolo reaches across the desk and takes the woman’s hands.
”Courage, mama,” she says. ”Courage.” – Sapa-AP