The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has raised the alarm over increasing reports of sexual violence against forcibly displaced women and girls in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Development Diaries reports that there has been resurgent violence between non-state armed groups and government forces which has reverberated across the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri of DRC.
Recent figures from the United Nations show that overall, 6.2 million people have fled their homes across DRC, which is the highest number in Africa.
UNHCR noted that as a result of the violence, 2.8 million people have been displaced across those provinces since March 2022.
‘Among a litany of humanitarian law and human rights violations, civilians are being killed and tortured, while arbitrary arrests, looting of health centres and civilian homes, and the destruction of schools are also reported’, the UNHCR statement read.
‘We are also particularly alarmed by increasing reports of sexual violence against forcibly displaced women and girls, including rape and sexual exploitation’.
Furthermore, the UN agency noted that shockingly, the latest data reveals that out of the more than 10,000 people that accessed gender-based violence (GBV) services in North Kivu in the first quarter of the year, 66 percent were rape cases.
It added that many of these heinous GBV violations were reportedly perpetrated by armed men.
Development Diaries calls on the government of the country to take immediate action to address the GBV epidemic.
Furthermore, those responsible for these egregious human rights and humanitarian law violations must be held to account.
Source: UNHCR
Photo source: IOM
