Congo

Discovered this while writing up the last post.

Did you know that the Republic of the Congo is not the same thing as the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Two separate countries.

I had a bit of a joke about that here… and then I ran into this very disturbing article extracted from a UN report from the DRC:

Women are gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters,' she said.

After rape, many women were shot or stabbed in the genital area, and survivors told Ms Erturk that while held as slaves by the gangs they had been forced to eat excrement or the flesh of their murdered relatives.

And no, we aren't doing anything much about the situation there.

Problems certainly did not end with the nominal end of the Second Congo War – the bloodiest conflict since the second world war, est. 3.5-4.4 million killed. Maybe one day we'll start paying attention to the millions being killed now instead of going on and on about the millions killed decades ago…

(The non-D RC currently has a sham democracy but is holding on to something of a peace for the time being).