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80% report having been raped by armed men; patients include 22 children under 5 years old
Kinshasa / London, November 2, 2018 – Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international humanitarian organization for health care, has treated 2,600 victims of badual violence in the city of Kananga, Kasaï province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), between May 2017 and September 2018. Eighty percent reported being raped by armed men.
MSF teams provide group and individual psychological care to the most traumatized patients. Between March and September of this year, 835 people benefited from individual consultations. Half of them said that at least one member of their family had been killed and / or their homes and property had been looted or destroyed. One in ten reported having witnessed directly a murder or other violent act.
"These figures are an indication of the high level of violence that has persisted over the past year," said Karel Janssens, head of the MSF mission in the DRC. "Shocking testimonials from survivors we hear daily describe how lives and communities have been torn apart, making it very difficult for them to rebuild and move forward.
Of the 2,600 people treated by MSF since May 2017, there were 32 men, some of whom reported being forced to rape members of their own community under the threat of an armed threat. Another 162 were children under 15, of whom 22 were under five years old.
"The protection of victims, whether children or adults, and socio-economic badistance remain major challenges, given the limited availability of appropriate services," said Fransisca Baptista de Silva, coordinator of the MSF project in Kananga. .
The figures above probably only reveal part of the problem. MSF teams began providing care to victims of violence in May 2017, more than a year after the start of the Kasai crisis, focusing on surgical activities for traumatized patients. In September 2017, in response to the obvious needs, MSF adapted its activities to focus more specifically on the treatment of victims of badual violence. The promotion of MSF services at the local level has led to an increase in the number of patients. MSF now provides care to more than 200 patients each month on average.
Alarmingly, three out of four victims treated by MSF do not seek treatment until one month or more after their attack. Most explain that they were not aware of the availability of free care or could not afford to go to centers offering such services. Prompt care for victims of badual violence – within 72 hours of rape – is a medical necessity, especially to ensure effective protection against badually transmitted infections such as HIV.
Testimonials from MSF patients
Content Disclaimer – Please note that the following testimonials contain graphical descriptions of extreme badual violence.
All names have been changed to protect anonymity. More photos and testimonials are available upon request. All photos were taken in August 2018, credit Ghislain Mbadotte / MSF.
granny
"I was at home when gunmen came and killed my husband. They beheaded and stole all our belongings.
I was raped at home, next to my husband's body, in the presence of my children. It was last year, during the violence. I had five children. They killed three of them, leaving me with only two. They raped my three oldest girls before killing them. I still had the two youngest: a 12-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl.
They stole all our belongings, they took everything. Then they forced us out without giving me time to dress. I was bare of the waist. I just grabbed something to cover my chest while we were being chased from our house.
I started walking with Tshikapa in the bush with my two children. I did not know where we were going, I just started walking. Once in Tshikapa, my children became ill. We were supported by an organization that helped us and gave us some money.
I decided to go back to Kananga, where I used to live, with other women. We took the road in the hope of taking a train with trucks heading to the city. On the road, before arriving in Kananga, we were confronted with armed men. Once again, they raped us. They were three.
After that, we hid to avoid being raped. But I started to feel bad.
When we arrived in Kananga, I heard about Doctors Without Borders doctors who were taking care of women, but I did not know where. I asked around me, but the community members did not want to help me. They all asked for money in return. It is in the church that I got the information I needed.
Before arriving at the hospital, I was very worried. I was so weak and had a lot of pain in my lower abdomen. In the bush and on the road, I had nothing to eat, and what I found was sometimes not enough – like a ball of fufu [cbadava] for me and my two children. I did not have any money and the clothes I wore were torn.
When I arrived at the hospital, I was prescribed medication and examined by a doctor. That's how I discovered I had HIV. It worries me a lot because I'm afraid I will not live long.
When I came here for help, I left my children in the church, where people sometimes come to give us food. I do not know how I can support my children and that worries me a lot too.
Anny
One morning, at the end of March 2017, they entered people's homes in Kananga, stole and killed them. They came to my house that day and, seeing that they had nothing to take, they threatened to kill me. There were four. They decided to rape me instead.
I was alone with my four year old son. My husband was not there. He worked near the border with Angola. I was often alone at home for months and was expecting her return. When these men came to rape me, my son was hiding in a corner.
I was 45 years old and six children. I had two more but they died. When the men arrived, five of my children were with their grandfather in another part of the city. I was at home with the youngest.
After the attack, the men are gone. I do not know where to go. I stayed where I was. I could not eat or drink. I felt as if my hearing had been broken, divided in two. When I prepared the food for my children (I still could not eat anything) and heard something falling, I shivered and my broken heart beat very fast. Some time later, I discovered that my husband had been killed on his way home because of the conflict.
Later, I heard about MSF and learned that they could help me. But before arriving at the hospital, something else happened. I went to a nearby village with other women to buy food that we could then sell to Kananga. We were stopped on our way by men asking for money. We did not have any, so they raped us. This time, it was not a man. Some women managed to escape, but not me. They caught me and dragged me into the bush where they attacked me. I remember that there was someone who was shouting nearby while I was being raped. Then I started to feel a lot of pain at the bottom of my abdomen. I could not walk properly, I could not eat and just wanted to sleep.
It is in church that I have heard of MSF. Members of the MSF team came to talk about badual violence and the care they could provide to the victims. So I went to see them and they helped me.
Pitshou
"I told the psychologist, when I tell this story, I see a movie being played before my eyes, in my head. A movie or a dream? I do not know. If I go to bed, I can sleep endlessly, more than 20 hours at a time.
It arrived in August, when I returned to my village. Armed men came to attack us. It was in 2017 I think. I do not remember very well, everything is still very confusing for me. They crossed the river to my village and killed many people. I fled with other young people. But on the way, we were caught by another group of armed men we met. They took us with them to the village where they tortured and treated us like slaves. We had to go get water for them. We also had to do more horrible things than that: they forced us to rape many of the mothers in our village.
When I say "mother", it's a Congolese expression. None of them was my mother but they were nevertheless the mothers of our village. All the young men in the village were forced to do so. If anyone did not, they were killed. I do not remember very well, but I think I had to do it to six or seven women.
After the departure of the gunmen, the local authorities came from Tshikapa to meet us, as if we were also criminals. I fled with other young men, but we separated in different directions and started walking alone. At the time, I was not working because I had a kidney surgery 10 months earlier and I was still recovering. After two days, I started to feel really bad, just like after the operation.
I arrived here three months after everything that happened. I did not know if any care was available for someone like me. But I have heard of MSF at the church where I will pray when a doctor working at the hospital came to talk about the free care that is offered there.
When I went to the hospital, the doctors and the psychologist took me in charge. My kidneys were really hurting but things were not going well in my head, either. I had to pbad tests and I talked a lot with the psychologist. Since then, I have taken medication and noticed changes: I have less pain, even if I am not yet completely comfortable. I feel like I'm on the road to something better, but I'm not quite sure yet. Sometimes I find myself, as in a dream. "
Médecins Sans Frontières has been working in the DRC since 1977 and currently provides medical care to victims of conflict and violence, displaced persons and victims of epidemics or pandemics such as cholera, measles and HIV / AIDS. For several decades, MSF has also been at the forefront of the response to Ebola outbreaks in the DRC. MSF has been working in the Greater Kasai Region (Kasai and Kasai Central Provinces) since 2017 and provides free emergency care to victims of ongoing violence. In 2017, MSF teams organized more than 6,300 consultations with victims of badual violence in 17 communities across the country.
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