At least 10 women were being raped every day in the tiny, embattled town of Bunia as recently as October 2004, according to the report.
Warring ethnic Hema and Lendu militia continue to terrorize Bunia — kicking down doors in the night and snatching girls in the fields — despite the presence of thousands of U.N. peacekeepers based there.
Peacekeepers in Bunia have also been accused of raping young girls living in the town’s sprawling camp for those displaced by fighting, or trading sweets and pocket change for sex.
The United Nations reported Saturday that Lendu militia in the northern Ituri province had kidnapped thousands of people and used many of them as sex slaves.
In some cases, even boys and men were being raped by armed groups.
In all, the report states that “tens of thousands” of rapes had been reported, and many more are believed to have gone unreported.
An awful situation with no end in sight.There is little hope for those in the region because the UN is complicit in the rape - by either perpetrating rapes on their own or failing to stop those conducting the rapes. It is a systematic and wholesale assault on women and those least able to defend themselves.
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