ZURICH (AP) — There are no eyewitnesses or television images yet of the crash that led to the death of Swiss rider Muriel Furrer at the road cycling world championships, investigators in Zurich said on Monday.
The 18-year-old Furrer died from her injuries on Friday, one day after crashing on a rain-slicked forest road near Küsnacht, south of Zurich, in the junior women’s race.
Police and the public prosecutor’s office in Zurich jointly said in a statement the exact time Furrer crashed was not yet established.
They said their ongoing investigation showed she crashed on a descent at a slight left-hand bend in the road.
Furrer was discovered unconscious in the forest away from the road by a race safety official, the investigators said. She was later airlifted by helicopter to the hospital.
At a news conference on Friday, officials from the International Cycling Union and local race organizers gave few details of the crash and rescue operation and cautioned against speculation.
Investigators said on Monday they had no evidence any other party was involved in the crash or saw it.
Furrer’s family gave their consent for racing to continue at the nine-day championships which ended on Sunday.
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A picture of cyclist Muriel Furrer from Switzerland who died after a crash Thursday, is projected during a minute of silence at the Cycling and Para-cycling Road World Championships in Zurich, Switzerland, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
FILE - Muriel Furrer from Switzerland, in action during the UCI Cross Country Junior Women, XCO, Mountain Bike World Championship, Aug. 30, 2024, in Pal Arinsal, Andorra. (Maxime Schmid/Keystone via AP, File)
Candles are placed to honor Muriel Furrer, the 18-year-old Swiss cyclist who died one day after sustaining a head injury in a crash at the road world championships in Zurich, Switzerland, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (Til Buergy/Keystone via AP)
The makeshift memorial for Muriel Furrer, the 18-year-old Swiss cyclist who died after sustaining a head injury in a crash at the road world championships, Switzerland, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024. (Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP)
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)
