The doctor who heals victims of Congo's war rapes The Observer, Nov 14, 2010

Dr Denis Mukwege at Panzi hospital in Bukavu. Photograph: Alex Duval Smith for the Observer

Deep in the eastern Congo, in the thick of a conflict that plumbs the depths of human cruelty, one doctor in a single-storey hospital is keeping hope alive. Gynaecologist Denis Mukwege draws his strength, he says, from the indomitable spirit of the most weakened of victims – women raped in a calculated act of war who arrive, "broken, waiting for death, hiding their faces", at his hospital. "Often they cannot talk, walk or eat," he says. 

A 14-year war that is, in effect, a continuation of the genocide that took place in neighbouring Rwanda has become a "gynocide", in which rape is used to tear the bonds of a community apart and facilitate access to mineral wealth.

In this volatile environment, 55-year-old Mukwege and his team have surgically repaired more than 20,000 women out of the thousands who have been war-raped in the Congo's Great Lakes region. "Rape," he says, "destroys women beyond the bounds of the describable."

Yet his patients keep inspiring him to strengthen his commitment. "A few years ago, a woman came to us who had been raped and had caught HIV," he says. "She arrived with her five children, and we treated her. When she left, she was given $20 to help her on her way. The other day she invited me over. She has bought a piece of land, built a house, paid a dowry for her son's wedding and has $1,000 she wants to spend on a business trip abroad. When you see the determination that can exist within someone whom one has tried to destroy, you want to fight alongside them.

Source: 

• The Observer, Sunday 14 November 2010

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