Sexual Violence in Congo
Rape, a weapon of war
Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at Panzi hospital, Bukavu, Congo. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.
Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.
"We don't know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear," said Dr Mukwege of Panzi Hospital, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicentre of Congo's rape epidemic, "they are done to destroy women."
The images are of women who are patients at Panzi hospital that treats the most extreme internal damage caused by rape.
Commissioned by The New York Times (scroll down for link)
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