Militant Group in DRC Kidnaps, Rapes Woman, Feeds Her With Human Flesh

According to the latest UN report, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been fighting at least 122 rebel groups in the east of the country for more than 25 years, making it one of the world's longest-running conflicts.

A rebel militant group, Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), kidnapped a woman, raped her on multiple occasions, and forced her to cook and eat human flesh, shared a Congo-based women's rights NGO at the UN, according to a recent press release.

Addressing the plight that women face in the war-torn DRC, Julienne Lusenge, president of the women's rights group Female Solidarity for Integrated Peace and Development (SOFEPADI), stated that the Congolese woman, Furaha, was kidnapped twice by the rebel group.

The victim was kidnapped when she went to pay a ransom for another captured family member.

"It was a trap. They brought me there, they tied me up, they beat me, they undressed me. They slit the throat of a Nande man, they pulled out his entrails and asked me to cook them," Lusenge said while reading out the victim's statement.

"They then fed all of the prisoners human flesh." "Late at night, we went to another camp. I was raped all night long, and I was subjected to other physical abuse," the statement added.

Later the woman was released. But some other members of CODECO kidnapped her, "held her as a sex slave, and made her cook and eat human flesh".

Once she managed to escape, she was told that the "family member for whom the ransom was demanded had been murdered."

Since May, the Congo Army has been fighting with the rebel group, which is waging its most sustained offensive since a 2012-2013 insurrection when it seized vast swathes of territory. The eastern region, which is rich in minerals, has been the battleground for more than a hundred armed groups fighting for control of territory.

In June, the Norwegian Refugee Council declared the situation in the DRC as the world's most neglected refugee crisis. As per an estimate, at least five million people are internally displaced and one million more have fled abroad, the aid group said.

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO), M23, and the Mai-Mai are a few of the main rebel groups in the region.