Kinshasa, November 17th, 2025 (CPA).- Two teenage girls were raped by AFC-M23 rebels in the Nyiragongo territory of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a new report by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH-RDC) consulted on Monday.
‘Two teenage girls aged 17 and 12 were raped by members of the AFC-M23/FRD, just after they shot the girls’ parents in front of them,’ the report said. The source noted that the younger girl, aged only 12, was also sexually assaulted. The two victims were then found in a state of severe shock and taken to a local NGO center for care. According to an excerpt from this report on massive violations of children’s rights in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, the events took place on March 3rd, 2025, during an operation by combatants in a town near Goma. ‘The attackers executed the parents before attacking the two girls, who were traumatized and left to fend for themselves,’ the report noted.
‘They killed our father and mother in front of us. Then they dragged us into the house. I thought I was going to die too,’ the eldest girl testified, according to the report. In its document, the CNDH also revealed that 51 cases of rape of girls, including 12 cases of children under the age of 12, were perpetrated between February and May 2025 and documented in May 2025 at the Aleluya Health Centre and the Aleluya Safe Space in Mugunga.
The CNDH described this act as ‘barbaric’ and reiterated that it constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity, before calling for judicial investigations to be opened against the perpetrators. This report, published last Saturday by the CNDH’s permanent sub-commission on women’s and children’s rights, headed by national commissioner Gisèle Kapinga, covers the period from January to June 2025. CPA/