Sexual violence spike among displaced people in North Kivu, DRCNewsDesk @bactiman63The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provided care to 674 victims of sexual violence in the last two weeks of April in camps for displaced people around Goma, the capital of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) North Kivu province. This shocking number—approximately 48 people per day, mostly women—highlights the extreme risk of violence facing displaced people in the area. Between April 17 and 30, 2023, MSF teams treated 314 victims of sexual violence in Bulengo, Lushagala, Kanyaruchinya, Eloime, and Munigi camps. In Rusayo, Bulengo, and Kanyaruchinya, more than half of the survivors reported being attacked by armed men. Clashes between the Congolese army, the M23 armed group, and other armed groups in North Kivu have forced more than one million people to flee their homes since March 2022.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 15, 2023 01:06 UTC