
Doctors Without Borders treated more than 25,000 victims of sexual violence in the Congo last year, by far the highest level it has seen there and most of it in the east where armed groups vie for power, the aid group said Monday.
The vast majority of victims — averaging more than two per hour — were treated in displacement camps near Goma. the capital of Congo’s eastern province of North Kivu, the group said.
“According to the testimonies of our patients, two-thirds of them were assaulted at gunpoint,” Christopher Mambula, the group’s program manager in Congo, said in the report.
Eastern Congo has struggled with armed violence as more than 120 armed groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources while others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings, rapes and other human rights violations. The violence has displaced some 6 million people in the east.
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