UN wants steps to prevent Congo rape
Source: Agencies |
August 28, 2010, Saturday
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THE Security Council has demanded that all steps be taken to prevent a repeat of a recent mass rape in Congo as council members voiced dissatisfaction at the late response of UN forces.
United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have said they were only informed of the incident more than a week after it happened, even though they had a base just 30 kilometers from the scene in the country's violent east.
That led council members to suggest, at an unscheduled meeting called by the United States and France, that the 20,000-strong MONUSCO peacekeeping force needed at least to improve its communications with the local population.
Rebels from the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu FDLR occupied the town of Luvungi in North Kivu province from July 30 to August 3, raping and assaulting at least 154 civilians, according to UN figures. One aid group has said many women were gang-raped by between two and six armed men.
The attack has stung the UN, whose peacekeeping force in Congo is its largest anywhere. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made protecting civilians and combating sexual violence central themes of his stewardship of the world body.
A Security Council statement on Thursday "demanded that all possible steps should be taken to prevent such outrages in the future" and called on Congo to bring the culprits to justice.
It welcomed Ban's despatch of deputy peacekeeping chief Atul Khare to Congo, but made clear it expected to hear "what more could be done to ensure more effective protection of civilians."
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, this month's council president, said that when Khare returned to New York on September 8 the 15-nation body wanted "a very serious, sober evaluation ... of what happened and why."
UN officials said they only heard from aid group International Medical Corps on August 12 of the rapes and then sent protection and fact-finding teams. They blamed a roadblock by rebels for their failure to find out sooner.
United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have said they were only informed of the incident more than a week after it happened, even though they had a base just 30 kilometers from the scene in the country's violent east.
That led council members to suggest, at an unscheduled meeting called by the United States and France, that the 20,000-strong MONUSCO peacekeeping force needed at least to improve its communications with the local population.
Rebels from the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu FDLR occupied the town of Luvungi in North Kivu province from July 30 to August 3, raping and assaulting at least 154 civilians, according to UN figures. One aid group has said many women were gang-raped by between two and six armed men.
The attack has stung the UN, whose peacekeeping force in Congo is its largest anywhere. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made protecting civilians and combating sexual violence central themes of his stewardship of the world body.
A Security Council statement on Thursday "demanded that all possible steps should be taken to prevent such outrages in the future" and called on Congo to bring the culprits to justice.
It welcomed Ban's despatch of deputy peacekeeping chief Atul Khare to Congo, but made clear it expected to hear "what more could be done to ensure more effective protection of civilians."
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, this month's council president, said that when Khare returned to New York on September 8 the 15-nation body wanted "a very serious, sober evaluation ... of what happened and why."
UN officials said they only heard from aid group International Medical Corps on August 12 of the rapes and then sent protection and fact-finding teams. They blamed a roadblock by rebels for their failure to find out sooner.
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