Children including toddlers represent more than a third of victims in nearly 10,000 cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence committed in eastern Congo in the first two months of the year, the UN childrenโs agency said on Friday.
The Congolese Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group seized parts of eastern Congo earlier this year as part of a rapid offensive that left thousands dead, including children, and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Unicef spokesperson James Elder told a Geneva press briefing that the rapes and other forms of sexual violence were being used as โa weapon of warโ and were taking place once every 30 minutes on average, with toddlers also among the victims.
โWe are not talking about isolated incidents, we are talking about a systemic crisis,โ he said, citing a database collected by organisations on the ground working on sexual violence which showed that between 35-45 per cent of the total were under-18s.
โIt is a weapon of war and a deliberate tactic of terror.โ