Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been displaced over the past year in eastern Congo amid fighting by more than 130 armed groups. That leaves them vulnerable to sexual assault, which is on the rise.
French aid group Doctors Without Borders says more than twice as many women in recent months have sought treatment for sexual assault in some displacement camps outside the eastern city of Goma. The 42-year-old mother of four who was raped walks Aug. 23, 2023 in the Bulengo displacement camp where she had fled war in eastern Congo .
More than 4 million people were displaced within Congo because of conflict in 2022, the most in Africa and second in the world only to Ukraine, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. Of nearly 100,000 people who arrived at displacement sites near the eastern city of Goma in July, nearly 60% were women and girls, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Like many other displaced single mothers, the 42-year-old mother of four is struggling to feed her family and unsure when she might return home. One May evening, after three months of struggling to feed her family in a camp with tens of thousands of other displaced people, she sent her children to find food. They hadn’t eaten all day, she said. That’s when a stranger found her alone and raped her.
The camp’s conditions leave women vulnerable to abuse. Shelters are little more than plastic sheets, with no way of securing them from intruders, Kihiu said. Armed men lurk outside the camp, where women and girls are forced to venture to find firewood and other necessities.
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