Gangs Kidnap Scores For Ransom Near DR Congo Wildlife Reserve

Kinshasa, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jul, 2020 ) :Criminal gangs have kidnapped more than 170 people in a three-year reign of terror on the edge of the Virunga National Park in eastern DR Congo, Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

"Small groups armed with guns and machetes have beaten, tortured, and murdered hostages, raping women and girls... while using threats to extort money from their families," the watchdog said in a report on Thursday.

The gangs seized villagers, sometimes with their babies, who were working in the fields or making their way home, it said.

The abductions occurred in the Bukoma area of Rutshuru territory in North Kivu province, a region where violence is endemic.

The area lies on the fringe of the famous Virunga National Park, a haven for the critically-endangered mountain gorilla.

Victims and their families who turned to the police say that nothing was done, HRW said.

It urged the authorities to work with the UN mission in the country, MONUSCO, which has a base "within a 10-kilometre (six-mile) radius" of the area where kidnappings occurred.

Between December 2019 and June 2020, HRW questioned 37 people about the kidnappings, notably 28 survivors of systematic sexual violence.

It said the estimate of abductions and rapes was probably conservative.

"Women and girls were often raped multiple times a day and sometimes by multiple men. Only a few among the oldest and the youngest were spared," the report said.

The captors would walk their victims for several hours into the Virunga National Park, a UNESCO Heritage Site affected by more than two decades of successive conflicts.

Most were released only when relatives paid a ransom ranging from $200 to $600 (169 to 506 Euros), the report said.

"The payments often caused severe financial hardship for families forced to sell land, leaving them with no source of income." Two-thirds of the 80 million inhabitants of DR Congo live on less than two Dollars a day.

The park was closed to tourists for seven months after a ranger was killed and two British visitors kidnapped in May 2018. The pair were released two days later.

Kidnaps for ransom are common in North and South Kivu provinces.

On July 17, an unidentified armed group released an aid worker from Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) after holding her hostage for 18 days in South Kivu.