{{The Democratic Republic of Congo has suspended a dozen senior military officers and is interrogating suspects in connection with a mass rape incident in the country’s turbulent east, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping department said on Thursday. }}
The United Nations said 126 women were raped in Minova in November after Congolese army troops fled to the town as M23 rebels briefly captured the nearby provincial capital, Goma, in eastern Congo.
The U.N. special envoy to Congo, Roger Meece, told Congolese authorities in a March 25 letter they had seven days to take action on the rapes.
That came after earlier U.N. demands that Congolese authorities prosecute the suspected rapists went unheeded.
“The investigations have been launched, including interviews of victims and interrogations of suspects,” said U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Kieran Dwyer.
“The commanding officers and deputy commanding officers of two units, as well as the commanding officers of eight other units, have been suspended and put at the disposal of the military prosecutor,” he said.
“Interrogations are ongoing.” It was not immediately clear how many suspected rapists the Congolese authorities were interrogating.
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