EU condemns mass rapes in DR Congo

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union's chief diplomat expressed anger on Friday over mass rapes by armed groups in Democratic Republic of Congo and urged Kinshasa to protect the population.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the European Commissioner for development, Andris Piebalgs, said the government should "deploy all its efforts to ensure the protection of the populations and the end of impunity."

They expressed "deep indignation and consternation following the attacks and rapes perpetrated by the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) and allied Congolese (Mai Mai) armed groups in Nord-Kivu from July 30 to August 4."

"These events again demonstrate a strategy characterised by a systematic criminal method and the use of sexual violence as weapons of war," Ashton and Piebalgs said in a joint statement.

The United Nations reported on Monday that at least 179 women and children had been raped earlier this month in and around the town of Luvungi in Nord-Kivu province, where Rwandan Hutu rebels are active.

The FDLR denied involvement in the rapes.

Members of the FDLR are accused by Rwanda of taking part in the genocide 16 years ago, in which 800,000 people were killed, before the extremists fled into Congo when Tutsi-led forces took power in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

Rape is a weapon of war used against civilians in eastern Congo, where assaults on villagers are frequently reported and blamed on a range of armed movements, including Congo's regular army, the FARDC.