UN officials celebrated the arrest of a Congolese militia commander accused in mass rapes of more than 300 people, but it was an easy and rare catch — the man had been handed over by his fellow fighters.
Sadoke Kokunda Mayele is accused of leading about 200 fighters in the atrocities in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), but he fell foul of his Mai-Mai militia because his own leader’s family members were among those assaulted.
“His group claimed that he had tarnished their name and that whatever he did was not under their instructions and that they wanted to get rid of him,” Hiroute Guebre Sellassie, head of the UN mission in DR Congo’s North Kivu Province, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Mayele was handed over on Tuesday by his comrades-in-arms at Irameso, the UN official said. Irameso is among several mining villages in the Walikale district that are controlled by rebels.
The nation’s massive mineral resources long have fueled the conflict in eastern provinces.
The UN said 303 civilians — 235 women, 13 men, 52 girls and three boys — were raped in 13 villages between July 30 and Aug. 2. Even in eastern DR Congo, where rape has become a daily hazard and some women have been sexually assaulted repeatedly over the years, such numbers are shocking.
Margot Wallstrom, responsible for UN efforts to combat sexual violence in conflict, called Mayele’s arrest “a victory for justice” and “a signal to all perpetrators of sexual violence that impunity for these types of crimes is not accepted and that justice will prevail.”
Mayele was an officer in the DR Congo’s army before he joined the Mai-Mai militia led by Sheka Ntabo Ntaberi, known as Commander Sheka. A nurse who treated 124 of the rape victims, including some in Sheka’s home village of Binyampuri, said one of Sheka’s wives, two sisters and three of his cousins were among those attacked.
Sheka initially denied his fighters were involved. In an interview with Radio Kivu 1 last month, he blamed Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels led by Rwandan Hutu perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
But victims told doctors they were attacked by a mixed group of fighters from the Mai-Mai Sheka, FDLR and some army deserters who had fought in a Congolese Tutsi rebellion before being integrated into the army last year.
Sellassie said Mayele, who was handed to military justice officials, had been identified by name by several rape victims.
The attacks occurred within 20km of a UN base of Indian peacekeepers, causing international outrage.
It took days for help to arrive, even though a peacekeeping patrol escorted commercial trucks through one of the villages, Luvungi, while it was held by the fighters. A UN report said the patrol noticed signs of looting, but took no action because no one told them what was going on. The soldiers were not accompanied by an interpreter, and few peacekeepers speak the local languages.
The UN mission promised to work strenuously to bring the rapists to justice.
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