Rape, murder and unrest are still part of daily life in eastern Congo.

[oberliner]

A young victim tells of her sexual assault and the kidnapping of her twin sister during the worst massacre in two years.

"My name is Kahumba and I am 23 years old. The night of May 26 is a night I will never be able to forget. We were sleeping in our house when we heard a lot of commotion. People in the village were crying out "kandi rhwamafa," (a Mashi expression which means, "we die again." Mashi is the local language spoken in Kaniola).

"My mother told us to crawl under our beds. Five minutes later I heard them coming to our door. They forced it open and entered our house. Three Interahamwe with guns and machetes entered our house. They were wearing the uniforms of FARDC troops (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) but they were speaking Kinyarwanda (the chief language of Rwanda).

"They shot and killed my elder brother immediately. It instantly brought back the memory of how they had killed my father last year. One of them grabbed my twin sister and raped her. Another one pulled me from under the bed where I was hiding. He stuffed a piece of cloth in my mouth and then raped me. When he was finished the third one also raped me, all the time saying to me, "If you make noise we kill you. Don't you see where your brother is lying on the floor?"

"I asked him to have mercy on me, but he said, "If you say that again we will kill you too." After he finished, he pushed a bottle into my sex (vagina). It was too painful. When they were leaving to go back into the bush, they grabbed my twin sister. My mother pleaded with them to let her go. She said she would give them two goats and 6,500 Congolese francs ($13) if they released her. But they took the money and the goats—as well as my sister.

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs37033;_ylt=Airv1XbaQAp6eDgN_hIH.nRvaA8F

[Captain Hilts]

1. The scale of inhumanity is stunning. nt