Recognized guilty of crimes against humanity for the rape of forty children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Frederic Batumike (a deputy from South Kivu) and ten of his militia were sentenced to prison at life on December 13, 2017.
In Kavumu, eastern DRC, militiamen raped or killed girls ranging in age from 18 months to 10 years. They took them out at night, raped them, and then took their hymenal blood to make them stronger. They had made at least 46 victims. The facts qualified by the justice of “crime against humanity”, took place between 2012 and 2015.
According to the NGO Physicians for Human Rights: “A few years ago, such a trial would have been unimaginable … For too long, perpetrators of rape in the Congo believed they were invincible. Slowly signals are beginning to show that impunity is not inevitable.