Mapping Report > Section II. Specific Acts of Violence > CHAPTER I. Acts of violence committed against women and sexual violence > D. August 1998 – January 2001: Second war

This period was marked by numerous conflicts between government forces, rebel groups and foreign armies in a country divided in two with, in the west, a government-controlled zone and, in the east, a rebel-controlled zone.¹⁰⁵⁶ These successive and concurrent conflicts in the DRC contributed to the widespread sexual violence, which was primarily attributable to four main causes: the armed confrontations, persecutions of certain ethnic groups, the suppression of all forms of opposition and, finally, almost total impunity in the face of abuses of power and a lack of discipline on the part of the security forces, police and military intelligence services.

1. Government-controlled zone

During the different armed confrontations, the government forces and their allies committed acts of sexual violence when capturing towns, when stationed in certain regions or when retreating in the face of the enemy. Rapes, often gang rapes, frequently involved very young girls, sometimes even infants.

In Bas-Congo, during their brief incursion at the start of August 1998, members of the ANC (the armed branch of the RCD)¹⁰⁵⁷ politico-military movement and the APR allegedly committed rapes in the main towns of the province. In Boma, they requisitioned a hotel where they raped innumerable women and young girls for three days.¹⁰⁵⁸ During the recapture of towns in Bas-Congo, at the end of August 1998, the Kinshasa Government’s allies, the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), in turn allegedly committed systematic and widespread rapes against the civilian population.¹⁰⁵⁹ In Orientale Province, the FAC is reported to have carried out numerous rapes of women and young under-age girls in the regions in which they were stationed, such as Bondo,¹⁰⁶⁰ and to have taken some of them with them when they fled from Dingila.¹⁰⁶¹ In Équateur, FAC soldiers apparently abducted 36 women from Bolima-Likote village and raped them in the forest.¹⁰⁶² At Mange, the FAC reportedly raped some 20 women that they had taken prisoner, one of them subsequently dying from injuries she sustained during the rape.¹⁰⁶³ Other victims appear to have been abducted by the soldiers during their retreat from Équateur and were used for several months as sex slaves. One of the victims, aged 15, was reportedly taken by the soldiers to Kitona (Bas-Congo), then to Kalemie (Katanga).¹⁰⁶⁴ In Kasai Occidental, the FAC is said to have raped at least 20 women in the area around their base in Demba territory.¹⁰⁶⁵

At this time, the government security forces were also persecuting anyone bearing physical resemblance to a Tutsi or suspected of supporting the rebellion. Women suspects were harassed, stripped of their belongings, arrested and detained. Several of them were raped during their detention, particularly in Kinshasa¹⁰⁶⁶ and Lubumbashi.¹⁰⁶⁷

Repression against the opposition led to the arbitrary arrest of a number of women opposed to, or critical of, the regime and they were, on occasion, subjected to sexual violence. Women suspected of sympathising with the rebellion were reportedly arrested, paraded naked through the streets to the police station and held alongside the men.¹⁰⁶⁸

One of them was apparently raped and whipped in detention and then taken to a Kinshasa hotel where she was raped for several days by a senior officer and soldiers of the DEMIAP (Détection Militaire des Activités Anti- Patrie) intelligence service.¹⁰⁶⁹ Sexual violence was reportedly also used against men as a means of torture and cruel or degrading treatment.¹⁰⁷⁰

In the government prisons in Kinshasa, the warders appear to have abused their position of power over the women prisoners, who were frequently held alongside the men. The warders reportedly raped them regularly and forced them to perform domestic duties.¹⁰⁷¹ Within the army, particularly among new recruits, there was a widespread lack of discipline. During arrests for questioning, arbitrary arrests or checks at roadblocks, soldiers would thus rape, hold to ransom and even demand young girls by way of payment. They would sometimes force their victims to undress in public. Rape was also used as a punishment when the victim or her husband refused to hand over money or as a way of suppressing popular demonstrations.¹⁰⁷² Young street children, abandoned or separated because of the war, were also victims of sexual exploitation allegedly at the hands of members of the FAC, who took advantage of the extreme vulnerability of these victims.¹⁰⁷³

2. Rebel-controlled zone

The multiple armed confrontations between different groups in the rebel-controlled zone targeted the civilian population indiscriminately, a population made up primarily of women and children who were always suspected of supporting one side or the other. The soldiers of the ANC and APR and their allies engaged in massacres and reprisals against the civilian population along with search-and-sweep operations aimed at seeking out the enemy in the towns they had just conquered or defended. Many women and young girls were raped during these different operations and then, sometimes, killed.¹⁰⁷⁴

In August 1999, and then again in May and June 2000, the latent crisis between Rwanda and Uganda for control of the political party RCD degenerated into open conflict,¹⁰⁷⁵ and this led to a series of clashes for control of Kisangani during the course of which elements of both armies committed rapes. On 17 July 1999, before the first war broke out, five girls trapped in the Maranatha church, Kabondo commune, were allegedly raped by elements of the ANC/APR.¹⁰⁷⁶ Rapes were also reportedly committed by Rwandan, Ugandan and Congolese soldiers during the two ensuing wars, in 2000.¹⁰⁷⁷

During the course of the conflict between the ANC/APR and the Mayi-Mayi, and in some regions controlled by the CNDD-FDD,¹⁰⁷⁸ women paid a heavy price, with each group attempting to outdo the other in terms of the cruelty of the sexual violence to which they subjected their victims in retaliation for their alleged support of their opponents.

For example, in South Kivu, in August 1998, elements of the ANC/APR are reported to have raped women in the villages of Kilungutwe, Kalama and Kasika, in Mwenga territory. Brutal rapes, disembowelling and rape with sticks of wood were suffered by an unknown number of victims.¹⁰⁷⁹ At Bitale, in Kalehe territory, in February 1999, elements of the ANC/APR allegedly raped women and young girls whom they accused of supporting the Mayi-Mayi operating in the region.¹⁰⁸⁰ In Mwenga town centre, in November 1999, elements of the ANC/APR are said to have buried 15 women alive. Before being buried, the victims were tortured, raped, some with wooden sticks, and subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment consisting particularly of inserting hot pepper into their genitals. Some victims were paraded naked through the village.¹⁰⁸¹ During the counter-attack led by the ANC/APR against the Mayi-Mayi and CNDD-FDD in Baraka region, in June 2000, soldiers from the ANC/APR reportedly raped and killed several women and burned houses.¹⁰⁸² Other cases of rape committed by elements of the ANC/APR during attacks and containment activities are likely to have taken place in Kalehe territory in 1999 and in territories in the regions of Baraka¹⁰⁸³ and Fizi¹⁰⁸⁴ in 2000.

Elements of the ANC/APR are reported to have raped women in front of their husbands, their families and their communities during attacks on villages such as Kilambo, in Walikale territory (North Kivu).¹⁰⁸⁵ The women of North and South Kivu were not, however, alone in suffering this violence: a large number of women were allegedly raped in Maniema, particularly by elements of the ANC/APR.¹⁰⁸⁶

For their part, the Mayi-Mayi are reported to have committed atrocities during attacks against villages and in the context of reprisals. Rapes were thus committed in Uvira, in Kalehe, Walungu and Mwenga territories in South Kivu and in Maniema¹⁰⁸⁷, accompanied by unimaginable cruelty. In Kamituga and Walungu (South Kivu), the militia allegedly cut off women’s breasts and forced them to eat them before executing them as punishment for their alleged support of the RCD-G or their refusal to undertake forced labour.¹⁰⁸⁸

The Mayi-Mayi also allegedly engaged in rapes during patrols, during movements, when putting up fences or when they were near national parks, including the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (South Kivu and North Kivu), and the Virunga National Park (North Kivu).¹⁰⁸⁹ Women working in the fields or on their way to them were frequently targeted. The Mayi-Mayi also committed abuses (murder, rape and torture) against women accused of witchcraft such as, for example, in Mwenga and Kitutu (South Kivu) in 1999;¹⁰⁹⁰ at Musenge, in Walikale territory (North Kivu) in 1999;¹⁰⁹¹ and at Wabikwa, in Pangi territory (Maniema) in March 1999.¹⁰⁹²

From the end of 1999 to mid-2000, acts of sexual violence in the conflict between the RCD-G and the Mayi-Mayi in South Kivu were such that it is estimated that at least 2,500 to 3,000 women were raped – often brutally gang-raped – over this period.¹⁰⁹³

The Hutu militia, both Rwandan (AliR/FDLR)¹⁰⁹⁴ and Burundian (FDD/CNDD), allegedly also committed widespread and systematic rapes of a bestial brutality. Many women, mainly young girls, were abducted to act as sex slaves.¹⁰⁹⁵ Between 1998 and 2001, for example, the Rwandan Hutu militia is reported to have attacked and plundered several villages in Kalehe and Mwenga territories (South Kivu) and Masisi territory (North Kivu) from the forests in which they were hiding. During the course of these attacks, they apparently raped and abducted women and young girls, some of whom were forced to carry the spoils of their pillaging.¹⁰⁹⁶ In some cases, such as at Mabingu, Kabamba and Mantu (South Kivu) in 1999, the women were raped with such brutality that some of them died. In July 2000, Burundian militia (FDD) reportedly raped a number of women in Lusenda village (South Kivu) and abducted girls in North Kivu.¹⁰⁹⁷

In a vicious spiral, whenever they recaptured a territory, the Rwandan Hutu militia as well as the ANC/APR, would engage in reprisals, including rapes, against the population. Always suspected of hiding or supporting one group or the other, the population was subjected to alternating attacks from the different sides, such as for example in 1998 at Chivanga; in Kabara territory (South Kivu);¹⁰⁹⁸ in 1999 in Mwitwa, in Walikale territory (North Kivu); and in 2000 near Kilambo, in Masisi territory. In Kilambo, for example, ANC/APR soldiers reportedly tied up the men and raped their wives in front of them before killing them.¹⁰⁹⁹

In North Kivu, the Ugandan rebels of the ADF/NALU [Allied Democratic Forces/National Army for the Liberation of Uganda]¹¹⁰⁰ allegedly attacked and looted several villages in Beni territory, abducting children, young girls and women whom they used as slaves, including sex slaves.¹¹⁰¹

On returning to their lands in Fizi and Uvira territories in South Kivu in 1999, Banyamulenge soldiers also reportedly engaged in abductions and rapes of women as they were on the way to their fields.¹¹⁰²

In all regions under the control of the RCD-G, opponents were brutally and arbitrarily suppressed. Hundreds of women accused of helping the militia and rebel movements, suspected of providing intelligence to the FAC or who had simply criticised the RCD-G were subjected to sexual violence in their own homes, sometimes in front of their children and husbands, and were frequently arrested. The wives or female relatives of men being sought were sometimes arrested instead of their partner or brother. Held in prisons or in containers, they were reportedly systematically raped, beaten and then some of them murdered.¹¹⁰³ Whilst this repression affected above all women in North and South Kivu, women in other regions under RCD-G control were also affected, such as in Oriental Province and in Maniema.¹¹⁰⁴ The use of torture in RCD-G detention centres involved sexual elements of the crimes committed during some massacres of civilian populations, such as rape, the insertion of hot pepper into the sexual organs and genital mutilation.¹¹⁰⁵

In zones under the control of the ANC/APR and their allies, the behaviour of armed elements stationed in towns, during transfers or during operations was characterised by a lack of discipline, an abuse of power and brutality. Women and girls who were in or walking to their fields, to market, to fetch water, in the forest collecting wood or walking to school were victims of rape and abduction and frequently forced into sexual slavery. Cases of rapes of young girls, often gang rapes, were widespread in the towns and close to military camps, such as, for example, around the camps of Saïo and Bagira at Bukavu, Kabare and Kitshanga in Masisi.¹¹⁰⁶

Soldiers, particularly from Mutwanga camp (North Kivu), reportedly abducted women into slavery.¹¹⁰⁷ Even the wives of soldiers on the frontline were allegedly raped by those remaining back at base.¹¹⁰⁸ The rare women brave enough to dare to refuse these advances were often murdered, along with other family members, to set an example.¹¹⁰⁹  Congolese employees of international organisations were not spared: women working for HCR and WHO were also raped.¹¹¹⁰

Gang rape was widespread everywhere. It is reported that in Maniema, at Kayuyu in Pangi territory, most of the rapes reported between October 1999 and January 2000 were gang rapes.¹¹¹¹ The brutality knew no bounds. In October 1999, in Kasai Oriental, at Musangie, 22 kilometres from Kabinda, 10 women were allegedly whipped then raped by a number of soldiers from the ANC/APR.¹¹¹² In 2000 at Tshalu, in the same region, while raping four women, elements of the ANC/APR reportedly subjected their partners, friends and parents to cruel and inhuman treatment. In South Kivu, women are said to have been regularly raped by dozens of soldiers.¹¹¹³ At Baraka, in Fizi territory, a young 17-year-old girl was apparently raped by some 40 soldiers.¹¹¹⁴

During this period, the situation in the zones controlled by the RCD-G and its allies was so volatile, with so many and changing armed groups and alliances, that it was in some cases difficult to identify the perpetrators of the rapes. Sexual violence took on unbearable proportions and cruelty and the many abuses seemed merely to increase in number exponentially. The soldiers frequently engaged in gang rapes and some women and young girls were also raped with sticks, stakes and guns. In some cases, the perpetrators of the rapes wrapped the barrel of their gun in cloth and inserted it into their victim’s vagina to clean it before passing her onto the next rapist.¹¹¹⁵ Armed men sometimes fired into the genitals of their victims, causing damage to both internal and external sex organs. In 2000, at Ngweshe, in Walungu territory (South Kivu), a pregnant woman was reportedly trampled on by soldiers in order to bring about a premature labour.¹¹¹⁶