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(CNN) — More than 150 female prisoners were raped and burned to death during a jailbreak last week when fleeing male inmates set fire to a prison in Goma, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a United Nations spokesperson has said.
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango told CNN that most of the 165 female prisoners who were raped by escaping male inmates died in the fire.
Between nine and 13 female inmates, “all of whom had also been raped,” survived the blaze, Magango added, citing a judicial source in the DRC.
“We did not independently verify the judicial official’s report ourselves, but we do consider his account to be credible,” Magango told CNN Thursday.
The male inmates, some of whom were killed by prison guards, plotted a mass escape on January 27 as the M23 rebel alliance battled with Congolese forces in Goma over control of the city, the UN-sponsored Radio Okapi reported Monday.
More than 4,000 detainees fled the Muzenze prison that day, it added, stating that the facility was now “completely empty” and left in ruins.
DRC communications minister Patrick Muyaya confirmed the rape of the 165 women, telling CNN Wednesday that “the government condemns with the greatest energy this barbaric crime.”
The killings and mass rape mirror recurring scenes of conflict-related sexual violence that have plagued the DRC for decades.
On Friday, the UN’s Human Rights Office said it had received reports of other cases of sexual violence involving the DRC’s army and its allied forces.
“We are verifying reports that 52 women were raped by Congolese troops in South Kivu, including alleged reports of gangrape,” said Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement Friday.
CNN has contacted the Congolese military for comment on the allegation.
This week, the M23 rebel group, which has claimed to have captured the city of Goma, called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire after clashes with government forces left nearly 3,000 people killed.
Members of the Congolese Red Cross and Civil Protection unload the bodies of the victims of the recent clashes in Goma for burial, on Monday, February 3. (Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
