Violence Against Women
A women's group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo urged authorities Monday to guarantee the safety of a doctor who founded a rape victims clinic but fled the country after an attempt on his life.
Denis Mukwege, an award-winning gynaecologist, narrowly escaped being killed along with two of his daughters on October 25 after armed men broke into his home in Bukavu. The assailants killed an employee who intervened, giving the doctor and his family time to flee.
"We call on the authorities ... and all those involved in the cause of women to guarantee his (Mukwege's) security so that he can return to Sud-Kivu (province) and continue to care for women," said Agnes Sadiki, head of the Women of Sud-Kivu Caucus for Peace.
"If it were just up to us women, Doctor Mukwege would not leave, because after his departure, what will become of the many women who have benefitted from his medical assistance?" Sadiki asked.
Mukwege took his traumatised daughters to Stockholm, where he vowed to return to DR Congo and criticised the government of Kinshasa and its neighbours for failing to stop the violence.
"Bringing peace to Congo, I can honestly say, would be easy if there was the political will. Political will on the government level, but also on the level of the governments of the countries in the Great Lakes region," he told a press conference last week organised by Swedish Pentecostal churches, which help to finance his hospital.
Mukwege founded the Panzi hospital and foundation in Bukavu to help the thousands of women who have been raped in the strife-torn east of the DR Congo by members of local and foreign armed groups, as well as by army soldiers.
Every year, the hospital's main programme for the victims of sexual violence treats around 3,000 women.
Women and children have frequently been caught up in the unrest pitting government forces against several militia groups.
On Saturday, four women and two children were killed while they were working in the fields in Nord-Kivu province by a militia known as Nyatura, a local civic organisation said in statement. Three other women were reported missing.
The civic group called the killings part of a strategy of "ethnic cleansing" by the militia and its allies who "have no other goal but to make Nord-Kivu ungovernable," the statement said.
The Nyatura militia is composed of ethnic Hutus and may be allied with the Rwandan Hutu group, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which Kigali suspects includes fighters who took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.
Denis Mukwege, Director of Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of ...
© ANP/AFP