Four men wielding machetes pursued a group of women as they ran through the dense forest outside of Goma, an east Congo city, on their way back to the displacement camp from which they had left to collect firewood.
One fell as a result of a stone. Before she could act, one of the men caught up with her.
“He raped me,” she said two weeks later in Bulengo, one of several camps near Goma housing approximately 600,000.
“He threatened to kill me if I screamed,” she revealed. The phrase “I felt dirty”
The anonymous 35-year-old victim is one of hundreds of displaced women who have been sexually assaulted after leaving camps to gather wood or food.
Between April 17 and 30, the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treated over 670 women, or nearly 50 per day, at three locations, all of whom had experienced sexual violence.
It reported last week that armed men had targeted more than half of those assaulted, and that its numbers were likely low.
Armed militia groups have been active in Congo’s east since the end of two civil wars fought between 1996 and 2003, and rape has been widely documented as a weapon of war used by them.
Following the M23 group’s major offensive in North Kivu province last year, which sparked widespread unrest and a military response, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.
Humanitarian workers are working tirelessly to meet the needs of those who have fled to overcrowded camps such as Bulengo.
Sex crimes are more common among women, according to MSF employee Delice Sezage Tulinabo, because they are forced to leave the camp in search of food and firewood to sell.
According to UNICEF, the number of cases of gender-based violence in North Kivu increased by more than a third in the first three months of 2023, compared to the over 38,000 cases reported in 2022.
The majority of those who survived the camps reported being attacked by men who were either displaced or armed.
Humanitarian workers have also expressed concern about the army. Bulengo women claimed they were forced to pay soldiers to enter the forest. They also claimed that some of them rape.
Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Bemba confirmed that the allegations are being investigated.
After witnessing the rape of two of her friends, Yvonne Tumaini Asifwe, 55, stopped going outside. She has, however, already begun to feel the effects.
“What are we going to eat?” she wonders.
