Congo's Troops Rape and Loot In Volatile East
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008; Page A15
GOMA, Congo, Nov. 11 -- Hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several villages in eastern Congo, raping women and pillaging homes as they pulled back ahead of a feared rebel advance, U.N. officials reported Tuesday.
U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said the army troops had reportedly raped civilians near the town of Kanyabayonga in violent attacks that began overnight that lasted into Tuesday morning.
Kanyabayonga is 60 miles north of the provincial capital, Goma.
Dietrich said 700 to 800 Congolese soldiers then fled Kanyabayonga and went on a rampage through several villages to the north.
"They looted vehicles, they looted some houses," Dietrich said by telephone from Kinshasa, the national capital.
A rare nighttime gun battle erupted late Tuesday between rebels and the army just north of Goma, and the United Nations said it was trying to get the warring sides to move farther apart. Mortars were also used during the nearly one-hour fight near Kibati, Dietrich said.
Kibati is six miles north of Goma and home to 75,000 people who have been repeatedly forced to flee fighting.
"There is a big tension because there are so many people there and it's so close to Goma," Dietrich said.
In New York, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire so aid workers could urgently help "at least 100,000 refugees" cut off in rebel-held areas north of Goma.
"Because of the ongoing fighting, these people have received virtually no assistance. Their situation has grown increasingly desperate," Ban said.
The U.N. chief also said he was "very concerned by reports of targeted killings of civilians, looting and rape."
Ban said about 3,000 more U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and police were urgently needed to bolster the 17,000-strong U.N. force in Congo that has been unable to stop the fighting or halt the rebel advance.
The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to take up Ban's request.
The fighting in eastern Congo is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in neighboring Rwanda.
The rebel chief, Gen. Laurent Nkunda, says he is fighting to protect minority Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu militiamen who participated in the genocide before escaping to Congo.
