'A Different Kind of Genocide'

At Panzi Hospital, which specializes in treating rape victims, there was a long line of women waiting for treatment on the day I visited. By one estimate, 27,000 women and girls were raped in eastern Congo in 2006. The hospital has seen victims as young as 3.

Denis Mukwege, the hospital's medical director, explains that women are sometimes raped by six soldiers at a time and violated in front of their families to maximize the shame. "After the rape, sometimes they destroy their private parts," he says, "introducing firewood and guns. . . . Most people who come back from the bush come back with fistula; they smell bad and leak in their private parts." The excretory organs are no longer under control. "The idea is to destroy the entire community, so they can't procreate anymore, for the race to disappear."

"If they were shot by a gun," says Mukwege, "you would call it genocide. This is a different kind of genocide, which destroys women physically and emotionally over the years."

At the close of my interview with Lucianne, she finally looked up. "I beg you, my fathers and mothers, to help me get safety from these people."

No words of comfort came to me.

michaelgerson@cfr.org