"106 missing in Congo boat accident" May 03, 2011|Associated Press
KINSHASA, Congo — An overcrowded boat capsized yesterday in Congo, witnesses said, leaving at least 106 people missing in the latest transportation disaster in this vast Central African country of jungles and huge rivers....
The Congo River, nearly 3,000 miles long and about 10 miles wide at some points, is the only real highway in the vast country....
I'm having a hard time grasping the width.
Barges traverse the river like floating villages, holding up to 2,000 people and goods from bags of sorghum to barrels of palm oil.
Authorities said at least 72 people were missing after a boat capsized on a lake in eastern Congo a week ago.
--more--"
"1,152 Congolese raped daily, study finds" May 12, 2011|Associated Press
DAKAR, Senegal — The central African nation of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been called the worst place on earth to be a woman. A study released yesterday by the American Journal of Public Health shows it is even worse than previously thought: 1,152 women are raped every day, a rate equal to 48 per hour.
Related:
"Some aid agencies estimate upward of 1,400 deaths per day.... due to ongoing epidemics and war-related causes"
That rate is equal to 420,480 rapes per year, 26 times more than the previous estimate of 16,000 rapes in a year reported by the United Nations.
Michelle Hindin, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in gender-based violence, said the rate could be even higher. The source of the data, she noted, is a survey that was conducted through face-to-face interviews, and people are not always forthcoming about the violence they have suffered when talking to strangers.
Congo — a nation of 70 million people that is equal in size to Western Europe — has been plagued by decades of war.
Related: Around Africa: Calling the Congo
Now you know why.
Its vast forests are rife with militias that have systematically used rape to destroy communities.
The study found that 29 Congolese women out of 1,000 were raped. Even in the parts of Congo least affected by the war, a woman is 58 times more likely to be raped than a woman in the United States, where the annual rate is 0.5 per 1,000 women.
“The message is important and clear: Rape in [Congo] has metastasized amid a climate of impunity and has emerged as one of the great human crises of our time,’’ said Michael VanRooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.
And yet it is a one-day wonder of a world brief.
--more--"
