HRW releases report on Congo violence

Human Rights Watch has just released a report, compiling information on attacks on civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Eastern Kivu provinces between January and September of this year. Not surprising to anyone who has followed Congo's sad history for the past fifteen years, the picture it paints is not a rosy one.

HRW has logged the deliberate killing of 1,400 civilians between these months with more than 7,500 cases of sexual violence against women and girls documented in clinics throughout North and South Kivu, which is nearly double the number for the same period in 2008. The incidents reported likely only represent a fraction of the total violence taking place.

Congo has been enmeshed in a violent civil war for most of the past decade after Hutu militias from neighboring Rwanda crossed over the border in the wake of the Rwandan genocide. Multiple militia groups sprung up and other African nations sent soldiers into the region in what turned into a free-for-all attempt to control Congo's vast natural resources. The majority of the country has been stable and an elected government installed in 2006, but the Eastern Kivu provinces remain contested between remaining militia groups and the Congolese military as a UN Peacekeeping operation struggles to protect civilians from the ensuing violence.

To read more about this conflict, visit our Areas of Concern page on Congo.

To read Human Rights Watch's full report on violence in Congo between January and September 2009, click here.