Posted by JUSTUS NWAKANMA on
All the policemen involved in the raping of Congolese women while participating in the United Nations (UN) peace keeping mission, are to be summarily dismissed, even as it has been revealed that many of them are coming back home with HIV/AIDS as a parting gift from the war-torn country.
All the policemen involved in the raping of Congolese women while participating in the United Nations (UN) peace keeping mission, are to be summarily dismissed, even as it has been revealed that many of them are coming back home with HIV/AIDS as a parting gift from the war-torn country.
Saturday Champion investigations reveal that of the 120 strong police contingent serving in the peace keeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 10 were indicted by a United Nations inquiry as having engaged in sexually abusing girls as young as 13 years. The report by the UN watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, investigated abuse of allegations by these men.
Already, Nigeria has ordered for the withdrawal of all the officers. According to the Force Police Public Relations Officer (FPPRO), Haz Iwendi in justifying the withdrawal of all the officers, said: When one is contaminated, the whole bunch is contaminated."
Iwendi who revealed that the Nigeria Police Force has contingents in 19 countries, said the contingent is being expected home, warning that "if one finger collects oil, the whole hand is stained."
Saturday Champion gathered that the presidency has ordered a full scale investigation into the activities of Nigerian contingents in peace-keeping missions, including those involving soldiers, for what it considers the disgrace of a nation.
In the Congo rape, reliable sources informed us that many of the policemen involved in the case are coming home with HIV/AIDS even as some of the girls they raped are said to be carrying their babies. They were also reported to have engaged in property looting, including other heinous crimes.
"These are typical Nigerian police. They went there and instead of doing the job they were sent to do, they started abusing little girls and raping women. Some of them have even contracted HIV/AIDS," our source said.
An estimated 30 per cent of the women raped in Congo's war are infected with HIV; as many as 60 per cent of the combatants are believed to have the virus. According to the UN, many of the rape cases are never reported, because of the fear of further molestation on the locals.
A further UN investigation found that peacekeepers and civilian workers were paying an average of US $2 for sex with women in populations they were assigned to protect, or bartering for sex with food, basic supplies of a fictitious promise of work in safe, well-guarded U.N. compounds. Many of them, however, end up physically ravaged, emotionally terrorized and financially impoverished.
The Congo war has claimed many more lives than any conflict since the end of World War II, yet receives almost no attention outside central Africa. An estimated 4 million people have died since 1996.
The war began when Rwanda's Tutsi government sent troops over the border to pursue Hutu militias responsible for the 1994 genocide, since many Hutu had escaped to the impenetrable Congolese bush.