UN Security Council urges justice for Congo rape victims

JOHANNESBURG — The chime sounds every four minutes on the radio station, reminding listeners that statistically yet another child or woman in South Africa is being raped.

A controversial UN-backed operation reported to have claimed hundreds of civilian lives has succeeded in disrupting Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Congo and will be wrapped up by year's end, a UN envoy said Wednesday.Alan Doss, the UN special envoy to Democratic Republic of Congo, told the Security Council that the objective of the Kimia II operation against rebels of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) "has been largely achieved although... there have been very serious humanitarian consequences."

Two leading Rwandan Hutu rebels were arrested in Germany on Tuesday on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes this year and in 2008 in DR Congo, prosecutors said.The pair, Ignace Murwanashyaka, 46, and Straton Musoni, 48, are the leader and deputy leader respectively of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), German federal prosecutors said in a statement.The FDLR is estimated to have 5,000 to 6,000 fighters, many of whom took part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before crossing into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Two leading Rwandan Hutu rebels were arrested in Germany on Tuesday on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes this year and in 2008 in DR Congo, prosecutors said.The pair, Ignace Murwanashyaka, 46, and Straton Musoni, 48, are the leader and deputy leader respectively of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), German federal prosecutors said in a statement.The FDLR is estimated to have 5,000 to 6,000 fighters, many of whom took part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before crossing into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

A draft United Nations report accusing Rwandan troops of having killed and raped Hutu refugees in the DR Congo, is "flawed and dangerous" and an "insult to history", the Kigali government said.The UN will officially publish later Friday the controversial report, which details a litany of crimes by armed forces against civilians over the period 1993 to 2003 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.The draft version of the report said that some of the crimes perpetrated by Rwandan soldiers could count as possible acts of genocide.

A five year old girl who was raped and left in a critical condition has been abandoned by her parents at India's leading hospital, an opposition leader has revealed amid growing anger over sexual assaults on children.

Amid one of the the world’s most troubled regions, Simon Village maintains that it is business as usual for his company. All the same, he will admit to being a little alarmed by recent events near his operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “If you remember, the M23 were just sitting in the bushes north of Goma. And then, all of a sudden, they were in Goma. It caught people by surprise,” the chief executive of gold miner Banro Corp. said in a phone interview from the DRC.

A DR Congo militia chief was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of leading raids on villages in the country's east where 500 people were raped in late July and early August, the UN said.Colonel Mayele, commander of a tribal Mai-Mai militia, was arrested in a military operation carried out by the UN Mission for the Stabilisation of the DR Congo (MONUSCO) and the Congolese military, a UN spokesman told AFP."He is currently being held in Goma," the capital of Nord-Kivu province, the spokesman added, without giving more details on the arrest.