Deportees 'gang-raped by Angolan officials in dungeon'

Published on Tuesday 26 October 2010 16:39

At LEAST 30 women were kept as prisoners in a dungeon-like structure and gang-raped over several weeks at the Congo and Angola border before being left naked in scrubland.

The United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that more than 150 Congolese nationals arrived in Bandundu Province in south-western Congo after being expelled from Angola.

Congolese frequently cross the border to work as labourers in the mining districts that line the boundary between the two nations in Central Africa.

OCHA spokeswoman Stefania Trassari said the men in the group were brutalised and at least 30 of the women were repeatedly raped when they were expelled from the country earlier this month.

The deportees told the UN that they were held by Angolan authorities in a dingy building. At least three were killed, including two men and a 27-year-old woman, who died after being raped repeatedly.

The deportees were expelled after being held for at least two weeks, Ms Trassari said. "They described the place as a dungeon. Our source said that afterward they were taken to the bush, and left by these people. They were abandoned without anything," she said.