“This is a war on women”; Horrific stories from Congo
OTTAWA, 20 February 2009: Her name is Mwangaza. She has lived through hell.
For five months, she was held captive by Congolese soldiers. Raped daily. Tortured. Now she is pregnant. And ashamed.
She is telling her story to three strangers – three men. They are gathered around her at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu in the DR Congo. A hospital with a 300-bed unit devoted to repairing women who have been sexually mutilated. A hospital with a daycare solely for children conceived out of rape.
These are three men who think they have seen a lot in life. Who prepared for this mission to Africa. Who have done their homework, braced themselves, asked God for strength. They are a firefighter, a pastor, a nurse.
Mwangazas tale leaves them reeling. -It feels like we have fallen off the end of the Earth, says Terry Lane, a veteran Canadian firefighter.
The three men belong to a church in Beamsville, Canada and run a grassroots organization called Assist Canada, which helps build schools and churches and communities in needy places.
They picked DR Congo this time, because they had little choice. One of the trio is a nephrology nurse from St. Josephs Hospital named Leonard Lwesso. He fled DR Congo 16 years ago when civil war broke out. He insisted his church had to help his homeland.
And so the trio packed their bags with hopes of learning what the women of Congo need. And finding a way to help.
Mwangaza is 22, from a small village called Sake in North Kivu province. She was married and had children.
“One night … she was cooking supper waiting for her husband to return home from work. Two of her friends were also there … Four masked men in uniform … broke into her home. Put a gun to her neck. Grabbed one of her friends by the hair and yanked so hard it pulled off part of her scalp. Her other friend, the pregnant one, was beaten to death right then and there.
“They then grabbed (Mwangaza) and all four men raped her. They dragged her off into the bush to their camp. They also held another woman there. Every day for five months these four men raped, abused and tortured her. Each day three of the men would leave to raid other areas and would leave one man to guard. One day he fell asleep and this young woman … fled.
“She ran for week through the bush. She said she ran like a mad woman.”
She made her way to the Panzi Hospital where she will give birth. After she delivers her baby, she will need gynecological reconstruction surgery to repair the mutilation done by her captors.
She does not know if her husband and children are alive.
The men from Canada gave money to the people they met in DR Congo. Small bits here and there. And now that they are back home, they are doing whatever they can to raise more.
They want to help the women train to be seamstresses so they can earn a living. A battery-operated sewing machine costs about 140 US dollar. Supplies for each woman are another 50.
Pastor Kevin Schular, the third member of the group, is using his pulpit to share the stories of Mwangaza and other women he met in DR Congo.
“We were told that 10 women a day are admitted to the (Panzi) hospital,” reads an e-mail from Terry. “And one-third of those will require surgery … I sat there and listened to (Mwangazas) story. I cried. I was no longer reading a story about these atrocities, but I was seeing them through these women’s eyes … This is a war on women. The world needs to know.”
To learn more about Assist Canada or make a donation, go to assistcanada.ca
Kilde: The Push Journal
