At least twenty female detainees were raped at the end of September during riots in Lubumbashi prison in the south-eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and have not received any assistance since, the prosecution said on Tuesday (December 1st). after an investigation by Radio France internationale (RFI).
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“According to the prison director, all the women were raped.
There were about fifty of them, ”declared the public prosecutor, Teddy Katumbo Lumbu, reviewing the riots which shook the prison and the city from the night of September 25 to 26.
"I dispatched a team to interview all the victims," added the prosecutor.
A total of 25 women detainees appeared before the investigators at the beginning of October and "21 women declared having been victims of rape, including a minor", according to the prosecutor.
“Fifteen detainees were indicted” for rape and other violence (fires, destruction, etc.).
The women were "regularly raped for three days, some by about twenty detainees", according to RFI.
"The victims will not see their ordeal end until the authorities take back control of the prison on September 28".
The women "have not received any medical, legal or psycho-social care," Chantal Yelu Mulop, special advisor to President Félix Tshisekedi in charge of sexual violence, told RFI.
A doctor who went to see them did not have enough medical "kits" to help them, according to the counselor.
These women "complain of pain in the lower abdomen, others say they continue to bleed," said the president of the NGO Justicia Timothée Mbuya.
Armed militiamen raided Lubumbashi on the night of September 25-26.
Official assessment of the provincial authorities at the time: about twenty dead, including two beheaded police officers.
Four prisoners were killed during an escape attempt at the Lubumbashi prison, "attacked" by "heavily armed men", then indicated the director of the penitentiary, Pelar Ilunga.
Several witnesses interviewed indicated that militiamen had succeeded in hoisting the flag of the self-proclaimed former republic of Katanga (July 1960-January 1963).
The attackers were also identified as separatist rebels of the Kata Katanga militia.
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