Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian agency, said the women were among a group of some 7,000 Congolese expelled from Angola in October. He said many women said Angolan soldiers were responsible for their attacks. He said the UN has called on Angola and Congo to investigate the reports.
“We call on them to investigate these allegations and to prevent any human rights violations during any future expulsions,” he said.
UN refugee agency spokeswoman Celine Schmitt said Friday that UN agencies will launch their own investigation this month.
The allegations follow a report last week in which the UN said at least 30 women said they were imprisoned, gang-raped and left without clothes in the bush along the border. Guiliano said doctors examined the 30 women in the Congolese town of Tembo and confirmed they were raped.
Congolese frequently cross Angola’s border to work as laborers in the mining districts between the two Central African nations.
Meanwhile, two civilians were killed near the Congo’s border with Burundi in an incursion by suspected members of a Burundian opposition group, a military spokesman said Saturday.
They were killed in a clash between DRCongo troops and suspected members of Burundi’s National Liberation Forces (FNL), who were thought to be trying to free two of their colleagues captured by the army, Maj. Vianney Karazama said.
Karazama said the civilians were killed by stray bullets, but local officials said they had been shot at point-blank range as the FNL fighters were fleeing back to Burundi.
The military spokesman said the incident happened at Kiliba, some 100 km south of Bukavu, the capital of DR Congo’s troubled Sud-Kivu province.
He said that residents of Kiliba had begun to flee their homes, fearing more fighting.
The two FNL captives had meanwhile been moved to Uvira, some 20 km from Kiliba, Karazama said.
The FNL rebels joined the Burundian government last year but their leader fled following May elections which the opposition said were rigged.
Several dozen people have been killed in recent weeks in Burundi, which has only just emerged from a 13-year civil war that left more than 300,000 dead.
Burundi’s government denies that new pockets of rebellion are growing in the country, blaming the unrest instead on “armed bandits,” but other sources report that the FNL is launching raids from Burundi’s Rukoko marshes, just across the border from Kiliba.
Burundian security sources claimed last month that FNL leader Agathon Rwaso was obtaining arms from the eastern DR Congo and had made an agreement with Rwandan Hutu rebels active in Nord- and Sud-Kivu provinces.
