Deaths in DR Congo boat accidents - Africa - Al Jazeera English
Hundreds of people are believed to have died in two separate river-boat accidents on the Democratic Republic of Congo's vast rivers over the weekend.
In the first incident in the Central African nation, around 70 people were reported to have drowned when a boat capsized on the Rupi River early on Saturday morning. Ebale Engumba, a local official in Equatuer province where the accident occurred, said the boat hit a rock while travelling in darkness without a light.
"We are going to arrest people involved who are in charge of regulating the boat's movement who failed to stop that boat from traveling at night,'' she said.
On Saturday evening, another boat, overloaded with passengers, caught fire and capsized in Kasai Occidental province, leaving around 200 people feared dead.
Local officials said that passenger manifest had been burned in the fire, leaving them unable to confirm how many people were on board, but witnesses said that the boat was overfilled with passengers.
Looting fishermen
One survivor, a woman named Romaine Mishondo, said the boat was already packed with "hundreds'' of passengers when it stopped some 10 minutes before the fire to pick up more people.
She said she did not know exactly how many people were aboard, but said the boat was so crowded it reminded her of "a whole market in the village full of people.''
She said that local fishermen quickly arrived on the scene, but began looting the boat rather than helping those in the water.
"Fishermen attacked the boat and started beating passengers with paddles as they were (trying) to loot goods,'' she said.
Mwamba Mwati Nguma Leonard, the boat's owner, said the fire had started while the boat was refuelling. "At the moment I am crying after learning my boat caught fire,'' Leonard said. "I was just told on phone that it was while seamen were putting fuel into the tank that an explosion occurred after the oil touched the vessel's battery.''
He said he has not been able to contact his employees who were at the scene of the accident, about 800km from the capital Kinshasa.
Francois Madila, an official from the navigation department in the province, said police had arrested two crew members and were investigating the incident.
Accidents common
River boats are a common mode of transport in DR Congo, which has less that 480km of paved road. The boats are often in poor repair and overloaded for trips, and many passengers are unable to swim, making fatal accidents a common occurance.
In July, officials said at least 80 people died when a boat ferrying about 200 passengers to DR Congo's capital capsized after hitting a rock.
In May, dozens of people died when an overloaded canoe capsized on a river in eastern DR Congo. And last November, at least 90 people were killed after a logging boat sank on a lake.
The timber-carrying vessel was not supposed to be carrying passengers.
Source:
Associated Press
Monday, September 6, 2010
One Rape Per Hour
Congo-Kinshasa: Outrage Grows Over Failure to Protect Civilians
6 September 2010
Geneva — Human rights groups are demanding an investigation into the U.N.'s failure to prevent a raid from occurring where nearly 200 women were systematically gang raped by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) late last month.
"These scandalous, outrageous atrocities should serve as a wakeup call for the international community," Marcel Stoessel, Oxfam International's country director in the DRC, told IPS in a phone interview.
Amnesty International echoed Oxfam's sentiments, calling for a critical investigation of the U.N.'s inaction.
"The DRC government and the United Nations must urgently review the failures to protect civilians to prevent such horrors from being inflicted again," Amnesty International said in a statement.
According to IPS, Amnesty also urged the immediate gathering and preservation of evidence in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Legally, the responsibility to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of the mass rapes lies with the weak and often ineffective Congolese government, which has been under mounting pressure to capture and try the individuals responsible.
A spokesperson for the U.N. said that a team has been deployed to investigate the incident, and is expected to finish its work by the beginning of September. The Congolese government, however, is not involved.
Another official of a human rights group admitted that the rebels were not likely to be apprehended, much less prosecuted. He cited a leaked U.N. report, revealed by Le Monde on Wednesday, which accuses the government of Rwanda of war crimes, including possibly genocide, in the DRC as reflecting the history of violence in the region since 1993.
Rape is systematically used as a tool of war, with about one case of rape reported every hour - the perpetrators of which are usually armed men from rebel groups or the regular Congolese army, according to Amnesty.
Given the DRC's instability, in 1999 the U.N. sent a peacekeeping force to the country, now called MONUSCO, which is charged with the protection of civilians. This week, it was revealed that MONUSCO failed to act despite knowledge of the rebels' presence in the villages, and failed to respond timely after eventually receiving information of the mass rapes.
Source: allAfrica.com (http://allafrica.com/stories/201009060441.html)
6 September 2010
Geneva — Human rights groups are demanding an investigation into the U.N.'s failure to prevent a raid from occurring where nearly 200 women were systematically gang raped by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) late last month.
"These scandalous, outrageous atrocities should serve as a wakeup call for the international community," Marcel Stoessel, Oxfam International's country director in the DRC, told IPS in a phone interview.
Amnesty International echoed Oxfam's sentiments, calling for a critical investigation of the U.N.'s inaction.
"The DRC government and the United Nations must urgently review the failures to protect civilians to prevent such horrors from being inflicted again," Amnesty International said in a statement.
According to IPS, Amnesty also urged the immediate gathering and preservation of evidence in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Legally, the responsibility to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of the mass rapes lies with the weak and often ineffective Congolese government, which has been under mounting pressure to capture and try the individuals responsible.
A spokesperson for the U.N. said that a team has been deployed to investigate the incident, and is expected to finish its work by the beginning of September. The Congolese government, however, is not involved.
Another official of a human rights group admitted that the rebels were not likely to be apprehended, much less prosecuted. He cited a leaked U.N. report, revealed by Le Monde on Wednesday, which accuses the government of Rwanda of war crimes, including possibly genocide, in the DRC as reflecting the history of violence in the region since 1993.
Rape is systematically used as a tool of war, with about one case of rape reported every hour - the perpetrators of which are usually armed men from rebel groups or the regular Congolese army, according to Amnesty.
Given the DRC's instability, in 1999 the U.N. sent a peacekeeping force to the country, now called MONUSCO, which is charged with the protection of civilians. This week, it was revealed that MONUSCO failed to act despite knowledge of the rebels' presence in the villages, and failed to respond timely after eventually receiving information of the mass rapes.
Source: allAfrica.com (http://allafrica.com/stories/201009060441.html)
Friday, August 27, 2010
Reccomended Reading
Africa's World War: Congo, The Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
written by Gerard Prunier
Rwanda's Involvement in Genocide
From Al Jazeera Africa:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/08/201082717746660515.html
UN links Rwanda to DRC massacre
The prosecutor said the 'pattern' in the DR Congo slaughter resembled that of the Rwandan genocide
A war-crimes prosecutor has said Hutus who fled Rwanda to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the 1994 genocide were butchered in a "pattern" similar to the Rwandan massacre.
Luc Cote, the head of a new UN investigation, said that Rwandan Tutsi troops and their rebel allies targeted, chased, hacked, shot and burned Hutus in the DRC, from 1996 to 1997, after the outbreak of a cross-border Central African war.
"For me it was amazing," he told news agencies on Friday. "I saw a pattern in the Congo that I'd seen in Rwanda."
Cote was referring to the 1994 genocide where Hutu extremists butchered an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
'Systematically done'
He investigated the genocide and ran the legal office of the UN International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda from 1995 until 1999.
"It was the same thing. There are dozens and dozens of incidents, where you have the same pattern. It was systematically done," he said.
Cote's comments came in advance of the official release next month of a 600-page UN report co-authored by him on atrocities committed in the central African nation.
It is a nightmarish inventory of murder, rape and looting that took place in the DRC from 1993 until 2003 as it was torn apart by more than half a dozen plundering armies.
The report's most damaging element says that Rwandan Tutsi commanders and their rebel allies may have committed genocide.
"The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report ... reveal a number of damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide," stated the probe.
Rwanda dismissed the report as malicious and ridiculous, accusing the UN of seeking to bury its own failings.
'Unacceptable'
"It is immoral and unacceptable that the UN, an organisation that failed outright to prevent genocide in Rwanda ... now accuses the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the Congo," Ben Rutsinga, the Rwandan government spokesman, said.
France's Le Monde newspaper said Rwanda had threatened to withdraw peacekeepers from Sudan's Darfur region over the charges.
The UN has said the leaked report was only a draft version and experts say diplomats are debating whether to include the genocide accusation in the final copy of the document.
Cote's probe, a draft of which was obtained by the AFP news agency, is silent on the death toll though it found evidence suggesting tens of thousands of Hutus had been killed.
UN and other aid agencies said in the 1990s that 200,000 Hutus were unaccounted for.
The possibility of genocide forms only a part of the UN report.
UN links Rwanda to DRC massacre
The prosecutor said the 'pattern' in the DR Congo slaughter resembled that of the Rwandan genocide
A war-crimes prosecutor has said Hutus who fled Rwanda to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the 1994 genocide were butchered in a "pattern" similar to the Rwandan massacre.
Luc Cote, the head of a new UN investigation, said that Rwandan Tutsi troops and their rebel allies targeted, chased, hacked, shot and burned Hutus in the DRC, from 1996 to 1997, after the outbreak of a cross-border Central African war.
"For me it was amazing," he told news agencies on Friday. "I saw a pattern in the Congo that I'd seen in Rwanda."
Cote was referring to the 1994 genocide where Hutu extremists butchered an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
'Systematically done'
He investigated the genocide and ran the legal office of the UN International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda from 1995 until 1999.
"It was the same thing. There are dozens and dozens of incidents, where you have the same pattern. It was systematically done," he said.
Cote's comments came in advance of the official release next month of a 600-page UN report co-authored by him on atrocities committed in the central African nation.
It is a nightmarish inventory of murder, rape and looting that took place in the DRC from 1993 until 2003 as it was torn apart by more than half a dozen plundering armies.
The report's most damaging element says that Rwandan Tutsi commanders and their rebel allies may have committed genocide.
"The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report ... reveal a number of damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide," stated the probe.
Rwanda dismissed the report as malicious and ridiculous, accusing the UN of seeking to bury its own failings.
'Unacceptable'
"It is immoral and unacceptable that the UN, an organisation that failed outright to prevent genocide in Rwanda ... now accuses the army that stopped the genocide of committing atrocities in the Congo," Ben Rutsinga, the Rwandan government spokesman, said.
France's Le Monde newspaper said Rwanda had threatened to withdraw peacekeepers from Sudan's Darfur region over the charges.
The UN has said the leaked report was only a draft version and experts say diplomats are debating whether to include the genocide accusation in the final copy of the document.
Cote's probe, a draft of which was obtained by the AFP news agency, is silent on the death toll though it found evidence suggesting tens of thousands of Hutus had been killed.
UN and other aid agencies said in the 1990s that 200,000 Hutus were unaccounted for.
The possibility of genocide forms only a part of the UN report.
Rwanda Linked to Hutu Massacres
From allAfrica.com:http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/201008270477.html
Radio France Internationale (Paris)
Congo-Kinshasa: UN Report to Show Rwanda Massacred Hutus in DR Congo, Says Le Monde
27 August 2010
The French media reported on Friday that a UN report will detail mass killing of Hutu refugees by Rwandan forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s.
Friday's Le Monde newspaper has seen what it describes as "an almost definitive version" of a 600-page UN report. The document investigates human rights abuses in eastern DRC, between 1993 and 2003.
Over a million Hutus fled to the DRC in the wake of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which ended when President Paul Kagame's RPF forces took control of the country.
Le Monde says the report identifies "systematic attacks" against these Hutu refugees by the Rwandan army - and the Congolese rebel group the AFDL - in the years 1996 to 1998.
The report suggests that there could be a basis for a charge of genocide.
Although other armies are also cited in the investigation, the paper claims that Kigali has spent weeks attempting to quash it. Le Monde says that Kagame threatened last month to pull Rwandan troops out of UN peacekeeping missions over the allegations.
The paper also quotes a letter from Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, written earlier this month to the UN. Her letter suggests similar consequences if the report is "published" or "leaked to the press".
But Le Monde says Ban Ki Moon is uneasy with any use of the term "genocide" in the final version of the report, due out next month - and that he has warned its authors to verify the legal basis of any accusations they make.
Rwanda meanwhile described the allegations against its army as "outrageous".
Radio France Internationale (Paris)
Congo-Kinshasa: UN Report to Show Rwanda Massacred Hutus in DR Congo, Says Le Monde
27 August 2010
The French media reported on Friday that a UN report will detail mass killing of Hutu refugees by Rwandan forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s.
Friday's Le Monde newspaper has seen what it describes as "an almost definitive version" of a 600-page UN report. The document investigates human rights abuses in eastern DRC, between 1993 and 2003.
Over a million Hutus fled to the DRC in the wake of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which ended when President Paul Kagame's RPF forces took control of the country.
Le Monde says the report identifies "systematic attacks" against these Hutu refugees by the Rwandan army - and the Congolese rebel group the AFDL - in the years 1996 to 1998.
The report suggests that there could be a basis for a charge of genocide.
Although other armies are also cited in the investigation, the paper claims that Kigali has spent weeks attempting to quash it. Le Monde says that Kagame threatened last month to pull Rwandan troops out of UN peacekeeping missions over the allegations.
The paper also quotes a letter from Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, written earlier this month to the UN. Her letter suggests similar consequences if the report is "published" or "leaked to the press".
But Le Monde says Ban Ki Moon is uneasy with any use of the term "genocide" in the final version of the report, due out next month - and that he has warned its authors to verify the legal basis of any accusations they make.
Rwanda meanwhile described the allegations against its army as "outrageous".
Monday, August 23, 2010
Mass Rape in the DR Congo
Taken from AlJazeera Africa: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/08/201082402724259229.html
Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels
The UN says at least 5,400 women in the DRC are believed to have been raped in 2009 alone [EPA]
Almost 200 women have been raped by rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during a four-day seizure of a town, aid groups have said.
A US aid worker and a Congolese doctor told the Associated Press on Monday that the attacks occurred within miles of a UN peacekeepers' base
Will Cragin of the International Medical Corps (IMC) said that aid and UN workers knew fighters from Rwandan rebel FDLR group and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages the day after the attack began on July 30.
Three weeks later, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo issued no statement about the attacks and said on Monday that it was still investigating.
Cragin also told the Associated Press that his organisation was only able to get into the town, which he said is about 16km from a UN military camp, after rebels withdrew on their own on August 4.
Systematic rape
"There was no fighting and no deaths, Cragin said, just "lots of pillaging and the systematic raping of women".
Luvungi is a farming centre on the main road between Goma, the eastern
provincial capital, and the major mining town of Walikale.
MONUC was based in the DRC since 1999 to help the government gain control of the east [AFP]
Four young boys were also raped, according to Kasimbo Charles Kacha, the district medical chief.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the peacekeeping mission has a military operating base in Kibua, about 30km east of the village, but villagers were prevented from reaching the nearest communication point as FDLR fighters blocked the road.
Civil society leader Charles Masudi Kisa said there were only about 25 peacekeepers and that they did what they could against some 200 to 400 rebels who occupied the town of about 2,200 people and five nearby villages.
"When the peacekeepers approached a village, the rebels would run into the forest, but then the Blue Helmets had to move on to another area, and the rebels would just return," Masudi said.
"During the attack [the rebels] looted [the] population's houses and raped several women in Luvungi and surrounding areas," Stefania Trassari, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said
on Monday.
"International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that FDLR systematically raped the population during its four-day stay in Luvungi and surrounding areas. A total of 179 cases of sexual violence were reported," Trassari said, adding all of the cases
were of rape against women.
Harrowing accounts
The IMC said it was treating the victims.
"Nearly all reported rapes were described as having been perpetrated by two-to-six armed men, often taking place in front of the women's children and husbands," it said in a statement.
The United Nations has withdrawn 1,700 peacekeepers in recent months in response to demands from DRC government to end the mission next year, but still supports operations against several armed groups in the country's east.
Roger Meece, the new head of the UN mission called MONUSCO - which replaced predecessor MONUC - said last week that the rebels were still a huge threat to the population and the UN would keep trying to wipe them out.
Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said in April the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the country would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult".
Accurate figures for sexual violence are hard to come by as many rapes are unreported but according to the UN, at least 5,400 women reported being raped in neighbouring South Kivu province in the first nine months of 2009 alone.
MONUC had been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of the DRC as it struggles to re-establish state control over the vast central African nation.
A war from 1998-2003 and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country.
Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels
The UN says at least 5,400 women in the DRC are believed to have been raped in 2009 alone [EPA]
Almost 200 women have been raped by rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during a four-day seizure of a town, aid groups have said.
A US aid worker and a Congolese doctor told the Associated Press on Monday that the attacks occurred within miles of a UN peacekeepers' base
Will Cragin of the International Medical Corps (IMC) said that aid and UN workers knew fighters from Rwandan rebel FDLR group and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages the day after the attack began on July 30.
Three weeks later, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo issued no statement about the attacks and said on Monday that it was still investigating.
Cragin also told the Associated Press that his organisation was only able to get into the town, which he said is about 16km from a UN military camp, after rebels withdrew on their own on August 4.
Systematic rape
"There was no fighting and no deaths, Cragin said, just "lots of pillaging and the systematic raping of women".
Luvungi is a farming centre on the main road between Goma, the eastern
provincial capital, and the major mining town of Walikale.
MONUC was based in the DRC since 1999 to help the government gain control of the east [AFP]
Four young boys were also raped, according to Kasimbo Charles Kacha, the district medical chief.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the peacekeeping mission has a military operating base in Kibua, about 30km east of the village, but villagers were prevented from reaching the nearest communication point as FDLR fighters blocked the road.
Civil society leader Charles Masudi Kisa said there were only about 25 peacekeepers and that they did what they could against some 200 to 400 rebels who occupied the town of about 2,200 people and five nearby villages.
"When the peacekeepers approached a village, the rebels would run into the forest, but then the Blue Helmets had to move on to another area, and the rebels would just return," Masudi said.
"During the attack [the rebels] looted [the] population's houses and raped several women in Luvungi and surrounding areas," Stefania Trassari, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said
on Monday.
"International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that FDLR systematically raped the population during its four-day stay in Luvungi and surrounding areas. A total of 179 cases of sexual violence were reported," Trassari said, adding all of the cases
were of rape against women.
Harrowing accounts
The IMC said it was treating the victims.
"Nearly all reported rapes were described as having been perpetrated by two-to-six armed men, often taking place in front of the women's children and husbands," it said in a statement.
The United Nations has withdrawn 1,700 peacekeepers in recent months in response to demands from DRC government to end the mission next year, but still supports operations against several armed groups in the country's east.
Roger Meece, the new head of the UN mission called MONUSCO - which replaced predecessor MONUC - said last week that the rebels were still a huge threat to the population and the UN would keep trying to wipe them out.
Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said in April the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the country would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult".
Accurate figures for sexual violence are hard to come by as many rapes are unreported but according to the UN, at least 5,400 women reported being raped in neighbouring South Kivu province in the first nine months of 2009 alone.
MONUC had been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of the DRC as it struggles to re-establish state control over the vast central African nation.
A war from 1998-2003 and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
From the New York Times
Democratic Republic of Congo: Rebels Have Seized Hundreds, Report Says
By REUTERS
The Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have abducted 697 people in Central Africa in the past 18 months, killing many of them, according to an investigation by a human rights group released Thursday. The Ugandan rebel group “has killed at least 255 adults and children, often by crushing their skulls with clubs,” said Human Rights Watch, whose researchers spent a month gathering evidence on attacks in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Nearly one-third of those abducted have been children, many of whom are being forced to serve as soldiers or are being used for sex by the group’s fighters,” the statement added.
By REUTERS
The Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have abducted 697 people in Central Africa in the past 18 months, killing many of them, according to an investigation by a human rights group released Thursday. The Ugandan rebel group “has killed at least 255 adults and children, often by crushing their skulls with clubs,” said Human Rights Watch, whose researchers spent a month gathering evidence on attacks in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “Nearly one-third of those abducted have been children, many of whom are being forced to serve as soldiers or are being used for sex by the group’s fighters,” the statement added.
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