Understanding rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

According to most sources, 5.5 million people have died since the beginning of the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1994, and rape is used as a weapon of destruction. More than 15 000 rapes were reported in the DRC in the last year1 ? accounts of these rapes include descriptions of horrific acts, such as mutilation and the killing of unborn children. The sexual violence is so severe in the DRC that some have described rape in the country as the|worst in the world.