Tens of thousands raped in Congo, claims human rights group

Militiamen and renegade soldiers have brutally raped and beaten tens of thousands of women and young girls in eastern Congo, and nearly all the crimes have gone unpunished by the country’s broken judicial system, an international human rights group said today.

Hundreds of new rapes are reported every week, but only 10 soldiers and militants have been convicted of rape in relatively lawless eastern Congo since the end of the country’s devastating war in 2002, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report.