Mutilation horror in DR Congo | BBC

[Ediacara]

Mutilation horror in DR Congo


General Nzambe showing pictures
of the mutilated bodies of his
soldiers

At least 100 people, mostly unarmed civilians, have been killed in a wave of horrific attacks in southern Democratic Republic of Congo.

One survivor told the BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in Lubumbashi that militiamen drained the blood of those they killed and put it into bottles.

"After they had cut off the sexual organs, they walked away with them. They took the victims' blood in flasks," said Claude Panza wa Losol, 22, nursing a bullet wound in his arm in the town's Don Bosco hospital.

The military commander of Katanga province, General Alengbia Nzambe, showed our correspondent pictures of the bodies of seven soldiers who had their faces and genitals cut off.

Our correspondent says that many fighters believe that using the body parts of their victims to make charms will make them more powerful.

More at the BBC

[teach1st]

1. And just in case somebody missed it: Silence=Rape

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&s=goodwin

...Rape has become a defining characteristic of the five-year war in the DRC, says Anneke Van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch. So, too, has mutilation of the victims. "Last year, I was stunned when a 30-year-old woman in North Kivu had her lips and ears cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped, so she couldn't identify or testify against her attackers. Now, we are seeing more and more such cases," she says. As the rebels constantly seek new ways to terrorize, their barbarity becomes more frenzied...