Save the Children said Monday it had witnessed a “horrifying” spike in the number of children being sexually assaulted in DR Congo, recording more than triple the number compared to a year ago.
“Armed men entered our house and raped me, my sister and my mother,” a 16-year-old Congolese girl told the charity.
She spoke to Save the Children in neighbouring Burundi, where she fled with her family and is now living in a refugee camp.
“It is tough to look my mother in the eye after what happened, but also tough for our mother to talk to us about it.”
Fighting once again erupted in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this year when the Rwandan-backed M23 force seized large swathes of the region.
Since January, more than 71,000 Congolese have fled to Burundi, one of the world’s poorest countries, and already dealing with thousands of refugees from earlier conflicts.
Save the Children recorded over 478 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) between January and June — an increase of 249 percent compared to last year.
It said 172 of the incidents, most of them rape cases, were against children.
“For the last few months, I have heard horrifying stories of children being raped together with their parents, and mothers being raped in front of their children,” Nadege Nizigama, Save the Children’s child protection and GBV case worker for Burundi.
Fear and shame mean sex abuse numbers are likely far higher.
“Tragically, we know the number of cases we have registered is just a drop in the ocean,” said the charity’s Burundi head, Geoffrey Kirenga.
Save the Children has been present in the Great Lakes region for almost a decade.
But it has been hit by major aid cuts by the United States and other Western donors, with fewer items such as diapers, pads, underpants, and soap available for GBV survivors.
“The funding gaps we’re now facing could force us to close down programmes that are a lifeline to children and families in dire need,” said Kirenga.
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