Two women from Mwenga, a town in South Kivu, described to Human Rights Watch how soldiers stripped and raped five women. They also put hot pepper in the women's vaginas, then placed the women in several holes that were dug in the ground filled with salt water. Mai Mai and predominantly Hutu armed groups are also committing widespread human rights abuses. They regularly attack villages, force people to hand over their belongings and kill them if they refuse to do so. Hutu armed groups in particular use rape as a weapon of war.
Women are often gang-raped by groups of ten or more, or are taken as sexual slaves.
One woman from South Kivu told Human Rights Watch how she begged members of a Hutu armed group to spare her. One let her go, but the next one broke her resistance by threatening to kill her child. He then raped her in front of her child and left her injured. The justice system has broken down under RCD rule. Soldiers and the police act with impunity and the judicial authorities are reluctant to act on criminal complaints, particularly when crimes involve RCD or Rwandan soldiers.