Congo (Kinshasa)

Raped and deported from Angola along with thousands of many others, a group of 339 Congolese women remain without assistance in their own country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the communication officer of Caritas/Development, Jean-Pierre Kamuonii, told the press here Tuesday.

When US President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in July, the aim was to clean up American finance. Yet an obscure passage, buried deep inside the 2,300-page legislation, seeks to reform an industry thousands of miles from Washington - one that activists say is fueling rape and other acts of violence against civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Christmas Eve 2008 and over the following three weeks, 865 women, men and children were savagely beaten to death and hundreds more abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in a remote corner in the north-east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in southern Sudan.

Aid groups on Tuesday urged the international community to avert a third consecutive year of massacres by Lord Resistance Army rebels in central Africa in the run up to Christmas.

They called on the United Nations Security Council to set up an expert panel to address the threat of the LRA.

Maria Malele, 20, looks down at her hands while she explains in her native Swahili how she was gang-raped by rebels in her home in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), six months ago.

A UN Security Council committee has ordered sanctions against a Democratic Republic of Congo army officer accused of murdering and raping women and children, and three rebel leaders.

Innocent Zimurinda, a militia leader who was brought into the DR Congo army and made a lieutenant colonel, has long been one of the most feared names in the strife-torn eastern part of the African nation, diplomats said.

A UN Security Council committee has placed four people from the Great Lakes on the UN sanctions list, including Democratic Republic of Congo Lieutenant Colonel Innocent Zimurinda. The US, UK and French permanent missions to the UN issued the statement, saying that those on the list will be subject to a worldwide travel ban and asset freeze.

As the trial of Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba gets under way, political analysts will go into overdrive about what the case means for the fragile peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In addition, many will see this as a crucial test of the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) ability to deliver justice in a region where politics is inextricably linked to bloodshed and instability.

In solidarity with thousands of women who have been sexually assaulted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, five Mennonite Congolese women joined an international rally of women calling for peace, demilitarization and the end of violence against women.

Kinshasa, 2 November 2010 - On the 10th anniversary of the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325, the UN system in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Family and Children organized a Day of advocacy and sensitization for mobilization of funds in favor of the National Action Plan under the guidelines of Resolution 1325 in Kinshasa on October 30, 2010.