KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Doctors Without Borders treated more than 25,000 victims of sexual violence in the Congo last year, by far the highest level it has seen there and most of it in the east where armed groups vie for power, the aid group said Monday.
The vast majority of victims — averaging more than two per hour — were treated in displacement camps near Goma. the capital of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu, the group said.
“According to the testimonies of our patients, two-thirds of them were assaulted at gunpoint,” Christopher Mambula, the group’s program manager in Congo, said in the report.
Eastern Congo has struggled with armed violence as more than 120 armed groups fight for power, land and valuable mineral resources while others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings, rapes and other human rights violations. The violence has displaced some 6 million people in the east.
Congo alleges that neighboring Rwanda has been involved in aggression and war crimes in the region. It also accuses Rwanda of giving military backing to the M23 rebel armed group. Rwanda denies the claim, but in February admitted that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border.
M23, of the March 23 Movement, is a rebel military group mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis that broke away from the Congolese army just over a decade ago. They staged a large offensive in 2012 and took over the provincial capital of Goma near the border with Rwanda, the same city they are threatening again.
Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch said both Rwanda and Congo’s army have killed displacement camp residents, committed rapes and obstructed aid.
“While the massive presence of armed men in and around displacement sites explains this explosion of sexual violence, the inadequacy of the humanitarian response and the inhumane living conditions in these sites fuel the phenomenon,” Doctors Without Borders said in its report.
High numbers of sexual assaults have also been recorded this year by the charity, which treated more than 17,000 victims between January and May in the North Kivu province alone.
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Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal
FILE - A 42-year-old mother of four who was raped in the Bulengo displacement camp where she had fled war in eastern Congo poses for a photograph Aug. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his popular defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in a surprise announcement that came as the country is embroiled in wars on multiple fronts across the region.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” between the men in his Tuesday evening announcement.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defense minister,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defense minister.”
In the early days of the war, Israel's leadership presented a unified front as it responded to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But as the war has dragged on and spread to Lebanon, key policy differences have emerged.
While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant had taken a more pragmatic approach, saying that military force has created the necessary conditions for at least a temporary diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the militant group.
Many of the families of the hostages, along with tens of thousands of people who have joined anti-government protests, accuse Netanyahu of scuttling a deal in order to maintain his hold on power. Netanyahu's hard-line partners have threatened to bring down the government if he makes concessions to Hamas, raising the risk of early elections at a time when the prime minister's popularity is low.
Opposition groups called for mass protests late Tuesday. The grassroots forum representing hostage families said Gallant’s dismissal is “a direct continuation of the ‘efforts’ to torpedo the abductee deal.” It called on the new defense minister, Israel Katz, to make an “explicit commitment” to end the war and reach a deal to bring home their loved ones.
The dismissal comes at a delicate time. Israeli troops remain bogged down in Gaza, over a year after invading the territory, while Israeli ground troops are pressing ahead with a month-old ground invasion against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Israel also has clashed with Iranian-backed groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and is facing the possibility of another strike by Iran. Iran has vowed to avenge an Israeli strike that came in response to an Oct. 1 Iranian missile attack, itself a reprisal for earlier Israeli attacks on Iranian-linked targets.
Israel's Channel 12 TV said that Netanyahu's decision was prompted by Gallant's decision this week to send out thousands of draft notices to young ultra-Orthodox men.
Under a longstanding and controversial arrangement, religious men are exempt from military service, which is compulsory for most Jews. This system has bred widespread resentment among the secular majority, and Israel's Supreme Court has ordered the government to scrap the system. Netanyahu, whose governing coalition depends on ultra-Orthodox parties, has not yet implemented the order.
Channel 13 TV said Netanyahu had also taken advantage of the U.S. election, when American attention is focused elsewhere, to dismiss his rival.
Gallant, a former general who has gained public respect with a gruff, no-nonsense personality, said in a statement: “The security of the state of Israel always was, and will always remain, my life’s mission."
Gallant has worn a simple, black buttoned shirt throughout the war in a sign of sorrow over the Oct. 7 attack and developed a strong relationship with his U.S. counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
A previous attempt by Netanyahu to fire Gallant in March 2023 sparked widespread street protests against Netanyahu. He also flirted with the idea of dismissing Gallant over the summer but held off until Tuesday's announcement.
Katz, his replacement, currently serves as foreign minister and is a longtime Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister.
Katz, 69, was a junior officer in the military decades ago and has little military experience, though he has been a key member of Netanyahu's Security Cabinet over the years. Gideon Saar, a former Netanyahu rival who rejoined the government in September, will take the foreign affairs post.
Netanyahu has a long history of neutralizing his rivals. In his statement, he claimed he had made “many attempts” to bridge the gaps with Gallant.
“But they kept getting wider. They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy - our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it,” he said.
Eleanor H. Reich contributed reporting from New York.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, speaks to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, left, at the opening of the 25th Knesset session marking the anniversary of the "Iron Swords" war, in Jerusalem, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. (Debbie Hill/Pool Photo via AP)
Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, left, and Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, attend a ceremony marking the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the Hamas attack on October 7 last year that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel Sunday Oct. 27, 2024. (Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool Photo via AP)
