Hundreds of women were raped and burned alive amid the chaos that followed the entry of a Rwandan-backed rebel group into the Congolese city of Goma last week.
According to a senior UN official, female inmates were attacked in their section of Goma’s Munzenze prison during a mass jailbreak.
Vivian van de Perre, deputy head of the UN peacekeeping force in Goma, stated that while thousands of male prisoners escaped, the women’s wing was deliberately set on fire.
Photographs taken after the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels reached central Goma on January 27 show thick black smoke billowing from the prison.
Though details remain scarce, the attack appears to be the most horrific atrocity in the recent M23-led conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, UN peacekeepers have been unable to access the prison for further investigation due to restrictions imposed by M23, leaving the identities of the perpetrators uncertain.
On Tuesday, reports emerged that around 2,000 bodies were still awaiting burial in Goma following the M23 takeover of the city, the capital of North Kivu province, on January 27.
Van de Perre, currently stationed in Goma with thousands of UN peacekeepers, described the scale of the prison breakout: “There was a major escape involving 4,000 prisoners. A few hundred women were also held in that prison.
“They were all raped, and then the attackers set fire to the women’s wing. None survived.”
This week, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned that sexual violence was being used as a weapon of war by rival armed groups in Goma.
The city, home to over a million people, remains under M23’s total control. However, in an unexpected move on Monday night, the militia declared a unilateral ceasefire.
Until then, concerns had been growing that Rwanda intended to seize more territory from its vast neighbor, as M23 forces advanced south toward Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, 120 miles (190 km) from Goma.
A statement from the Alliance Fleuve Congo (Congo River Alliance), a political-military coalition that includes M23, asserted that it had “no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities.
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