GENEVA, Oct 20, 2009 (AFP) - The United Nations on Tuesday launched a cry of alarm over the "madness" behind a growing wave of rapes committed by the warring parties in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
"Once again we're condemning violations of human rights by the warring parties in Congo, it seems that this rape madness is continuing," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The UN urged a halt in the use of rape as a "weapon of war," Byrs said.
Her comments followed an incident earlier this month in Sud-Kivu province which is believed to have involved government troops in the area.
"We are demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice. On October 5 in Bunyakiri, five women were raped by what we think were members of the national army and a woman was killed," Byrs added.
At least 5,387 cases of rape against women were reported in the province alone in the first six months of the year, some 90 percent of them allegedly committed by armed groups or regular forces, according to the United Nations.
But the pattern of rapes spreads beyond the province and many cases are believed to be unreported, UN officials said.
Byrs said the numbers were "certainly" increasing since the Congolese army launched an operation known as Kimia II a few months ago, especially in Sud-Kivu, but she was unable to give any figures.
Last week, Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, said in Kinshasa that Kimia 2 had been "catastrophic" in terms of human rights.
But the UN special envoy for the country, Alan Doss, subsequently cautioned against easing military pressure on Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Congo despite reports of killings and rapes by government troops.
Rapes in the east have also been blamed on a variety of armed militias and rebel groups there and even on UN peacekeepers.
A fact-finding team sent to look into allegations of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers found no evidence that such offenses took place, the military chief of the UN mission (MONUC) General Babacar Gaye said in August.
Byrs said Tuesday: "It's completely unacceptable, whoever commits it. The UN has always said there's zero tolerance for sexual abuse."
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