UN says rape is systematic weapon of war in Darfur

[maddezmom]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - One medical charity has treated 500 victims of sexual violence in Darfur in four months and this is just a fraction of such attacks in the Sudanese province, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.


Under-Secretary General Jan Egeland told the Security Council women and children were being systematically raped and assaulted in the ravaged region and urged Sudanese authorities to do more to protect civilians and end a culture of impunity.

Addressing the U.N. Security Council on the need for more international effort to protect civilians in armed conflicts, Egeland said Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo were among the countries where sexual violence was worst.

The Darfur conflict broke out two years ago when rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government, complaining of discrimination. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by arming militias who burned villages and killed and raped civilians.

At least 180,000 people have died from violence, hunger and disease and two million have been driven from their homes.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050621/wl_nm/un_civilians_dc;_

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. check out RI

Refugees International for more information on Darfur.

www.refugeesinternational.org

[applegrove]

2. Rape servers two purposes. Terror and ethnic cleansing.

Thankfully it is a war crime. I wonder though how many people will actually face trial for that. I would guess just about nobody. The same thing is going on in Uganda.


Here is the Darfur Daily thread from SAVE DARFUR & recent UN reports.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3914190&mesg_id=3914190

[Princess Turandot]

3. I guess they finally started reading Nicholas Kristof's columns..

who has been (pretty much alone) reporting on this for months on the NYT OpEd page. His interviews and the photos are heartbreaking.

[LynnTheDem]

4. Sounds like one big US-controlled Abu Ghraib.

And NO I WON'T APOLOGIZE for that, rethugs, so FOAD arseholes.

[FloridaPat]

5. Sounds like all wars. Spreading the old seed crap.

[struggle4progress]

6. kick

[maddezmom]

7. and again: U.N.: Rape As Weapon of War High in Congo

PANZI, Congo - The teenager with flowers in her hair crossed her hands to keep them from trembling and described how she was raped by 10 militiamen.

Abducted two years ago when she was 16, Ombeni was kept as a concubine in the forests of eastern Congo. She became pregnant and at nearly nine months gestation, her captors cut her vagina with a machete, leaving the baby dead and abandoning the teenager in the forest.

"I laid there for one week," Ombeni said. "Until insects came out of my body." Ombeni was eventually rescued by a woman who was foraging for food and made her way to a clinic for rape victims.

She is one of thousands of women who are brutally raped each year in Congo, another layer of degradation in a war that never seems to end.

In a briefing before the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said rape as a weapon of war was at its worst in eastern Congo and the Darfur region of Sudan.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050622/ap_on_re_af/congo_rape_as_weapon/nc:723;_