Caught this article last week. Gut-wrenching. Many challenges in the DRC, especially with the MONUC peacekeeping force currently on the ground (ill-equipped with a limited mandate to actively protect civilians in a region size of Western Europe!)

The Rastas are small (less than 100 combatants), but the most vicious, of the dozens of militia groups still in Eastern Congo (the International crisis group estimates that 14,000 to 18,000 militiamen remain in the region to fight with the Congolese army, preying on the local population)).

The recent May attack illustrates the dilemma that both MONUC and the Congolese army face. In some cases, UN forces do more harm than good -- when UN forces counter attack, militias turn on the local population, using extreme violence as leverage.

The DRC is a massive human rights crisis, an issue that does not garner nearly enough media attention. I'm grateful to the NY Times for pushing more awareness on this urgent issue.

A more detailed overview can be found here

Thank you for posting this article link. Rape is a war crime perpetrated by many groups in the DRC. I'll look at the article carefully.

I'm very happy to see this brought up. I get frustrated at the lack of coverage of this -- it's there, but it's not enough.

Susan, great link...thanks for posting.

I also want to thank you, Josh and Susan, for bringing it to our attention - this is important and disturbing information on an under-reported crisis.

There is a substantive news report dated today, and headlined:

"ANGOLA-DRC: Activists denounce political apathy towards migrant rape victims"

It originates from the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) [source: wiserearth.org]. IRIN is connected to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It asserts its editorial independence.

The article describes a related twist, revealed by Medicins Sans Frontieres, that rape and other abuses are also being perpetrated by the Angolan authorities on Congolese migrant workers, aimed at driving them from the Angolan diamond mining sector. It includes a statement by the African Human Right Defence Association (a DRC-based NGO, from what I can gather) that these atrocities are happening both in the DRC and neighbouring Angola.

I personally commit to monitoring the news more closely, with an eye towards seeing what can be done about this horrific situation.

I read ICG's site weekly so I don't fall behind and get some reports sent automatically to inbox ... and as such, don't always keep up with what is being reported more broadly...... so THANK YOU for posting this.

Hi Gayle - thanks, I found ICG's site and a wealth of information - great resource!

(I'm still searching for info on this particular issue - I'm sure it's there somewhere, I suspect it's just my thick-headedness...).

I was hunting for info about the systematic sexual violence in DR Congo, and how a concerned individual might be able to offer help, and came across this correspondence, posted at the blog of Susannah Breslin, regarding the Panzi Hospital in Bakavu where many of the women have been receiving care:

...

Thank you so much for mailing us and asking how your readers can help. We are glad to hear that the NYT article has been much spread, and the project has received much-needed attention since the article was published and we are happy that people are touched by the situation of the Congolese women and would like to help us in this struggle to end the violence against women.

If readers wish to contribute funds they can do it through the Bank Account of Panzi General Reference Hospital, to which they can send their donation. Please mark the check or bank transfer with "VVS project" ("Victims de Violence Sexuelle Projet", in other words, Victims of Sexual Violence project). This is the project that is run within the infrastructure of the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu and in which we treat and rehabilitate the raped women. The hospital is owned and run by the organisation called CEPAC.

Account number: 170-0362031-93 (USD account)

Title of receiver: 8ème CEPAC V/C HOPITAL GENERAL DE REFERENCE DE PANZI
BANQUE COMMERCIALE DU CONGO

AGENCE DE BUKAVU/ RD CONGO

Swift code / BCDCCDKI

(Update: A reader expressed concern about making this information public. I called Erika Beckman, Project Manager of the Female Victims of Sexual Violence Project at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Congo, who assured me it is fine to do so. In the meantime, I'm emailing with Erika to see if there is a way that donations could be made via PayPal. I'll keep readers abreast of any developments in this direction. -- Susannah)

[Edited by Jon A. - typo]

Thought I would also mention this Ms. Magazine article (now 2 years old but, in my view, a significant effort to cover this story).

It is written by Stephanie Nolen, a Canadian journalist that reports from and about Africa, and someone whose reportage I admire.

An up-to-date report today (from The Globe and Mail, one of my local national daily newspapers):

Millions of lives lost in under-reported Congo crisis, report says

DAVID MCDOUGALL

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

January 22, 2008 at 7:00 AM EST

The effects of one of the bloodiest wars in modern history continue to unfold in relative obscurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 5.4 million lives have been lost as a result of conflict since 1998 [emphasis added], according to a nationwide mortality survey that will be released today.

While the conflict in the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan has begun to draw substantial international attention, the humanitarian crisis resulting from conflict in the Congo has received almost none. About 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, and two million displaced.

more...

[Edited by Jon A to add emphasis]

News outlets are reporting this hour that a peace deal has been agreed on!

DR Congo government declares ceasefire in country's east

KINSHASA (AFP) — The Democratic Republic of Congo government on Thursday officially declared a ceasefire in the embattled east following a peace deal signed by warring parties, the defence ministry said.

more...

The NYT had a good article on the new estimates of deaths in the COngo and it went into more detail than I have seen elsewhere about how they calculated the numbers. As a quant , this was just more confirmation to me about how bad the use of statistics in social science has become. The NYT explained they that there is a huge margin of error in even estimating the population of the Congo and that the death estimates are highly sensitive to which estimate of population you use. Just that one fact is enough to destroy any faith I have in the utility of these estimates.

I don't say this in any way to belittle the horror that has been the Congo or challenge what the numbers are, because I have no clue. My point is only that we should all be very careful about using these kinds of numbers and should strive to understand how they were calculated so that when the next number comes out we can determine if it really reflects a trend, a change in methods, or just error.

Thanks John - a helpful reminder. We should definitely strive for accuracy when speaking of these things.

I'm going to check the NYTimes, and do a little background reading-around on the issue of numbers.

The Congo Global Action has a website and a blog, both worth reading.

The blog's latest entry is about how NGOs seem to be ignoring the humanitarian crisis there.

This feels a bit like the effort to raise awareness of under-recognised diseases - of course, all humanitarian crises deserve attention, but there are just so many of them world-wide that some end up being pushed into the "background" (unless we "push back").

Action Alert: CARE has a letter-writing campaign targeted at the U.S. Senate, to demand passage of the The International Violence Against Women Act (S.2279).

You can read more about CARE's legislative campaigns about the DRC here.

This is for the benefit of our friends to the south - personally I'm based in Soviet Canuckistan.