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Riccardo Gangale/PA

74 militia members arrested over mass rapes in DR Congo

The country’s justice minister said the group’s leader told them they had to rape very young girls to be assured of supernatural protection.

AUTHORITIES IN THE Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested a provincial deputy and 74 others accused of belonging to a militia that carried out killings and mass rapes in the country’s restive east, the justice minister said.

South Kivu province lawmaker Frederic Batumike was the leader of the violent group, which goes by the name of “Djeshi ya Yesu” (Jesus’ Army), Alexis Thambwe Mwamba said at a press conference in Kinshasa.

He said Batumike was suspected of having ordered the murder last March of Congolese human rights activist Evariste Kasali and the 2012 killing of German national and local land owner Walter Mueller.

The minister also accused the militia of raping around 30 girls, saying that Batumike had hired “a fetishist who told the militiamen to rape very young girls to be assured of acquiring supernatural protection”.

Batumike and the other suspects were taken into custody this week in Bukavu, the capital of the country’s troubled South Kivu province, the minister added.

There have long been claims of recurrent sexual violence in the resource-rich but volatile region, home to dozens of armed groups.

- © AFP 2016.

Read: Former DR Congo warlord found guilty of deliberate campaign of rape and murder>

Read: ‘This is what we die for’: children put in danger for smartphones>

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    Mute Brian Ó Dálaigh
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    Feb 25th 2014, 2:40 PM

    Are they really benefitting from WhatsApp’s outage, or is it more that people are ditching WhatsApp since the Facebook takeover?

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    Mute Who's Yer Man
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    Feb 25th 2014, 3:08 PM

    I deleted my account, and the app from my phone. Barely use it as it is. Find Viber better.

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    Mute The Doctor
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    Feb 25th 2014, 3:50 PM

    Yeah, I only use viber. Didn’t bother even trying any other messaging app. How many different ways do I need to talk to the same people?

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    Mute N O'C
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    Feb 25th 2014, 4:28 PM

    Had both WhatsApp and Viber for a couple of years. When Viber added text messaging (was originally just voice) stopped using WhatsApp altogether.

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    Mute Martin Sinnott
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    Feb 25th 2014, 3:42 PM

    The stock valuations of these tech companies make no sence ! Twitter never has made a profit and is worth billions !

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    Mute Chloe Grant
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    Feb 25th 2014, 2:55 PM

    Never heard of LINE don’t know why they’re bragging. Left whatsapp for viber a long time ago. Joining with Facebook will mean constant technical problems problems

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    Mute Jay C.
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    Feb 25th 2014, 3:26 PM

    Currently working in S.E. Asia here, Whatsapp is almost nonexistent – Line has pretty much obtained market saturation. It’s a big world out there buddy, and Ireland is a very small pixel in the picture.

    Just sayin’

    ;)

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    Mute Chloe Grant
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    Feb 25th 2014, 3:28 PM

    Understand that… Just stating I’ve never heard of them….. Buddy….

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    Mute Jay C.
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    Feb 25th 2014, 3:36 PM

    Well you said you don’t know why they’re bragging… Well, 340+ million users and 0 network problems, (ever, in my experience). Facebook buys Whatsapp and an outage occurs within hours.

    That’s the reason they were braggin’

    :)

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    Mute Ciaran De Ceol
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    Feb 26th 2014, 1:08 AM

    Yep. Any Korean or Japanese person I’ve met here in Asia seem to never even have heard of Viber or Whatsapp. LINE is massive. I prefer it to Viber which I use for my Irish friends. I’d recommend to give it a try.

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    Mute Bilbo Baggins
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    Feb 26th 2014, 1:30 AM

    Ah jasus there’s messaging app fanboi’s now…

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    Mute Ciaran De Ceol
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    Feb 26th 2014, 10:11 AM

    No point in staying with a service when there is a better one out there for free.

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    Mute Vic
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    Feb 25th 2014, 7:29 PM

    Viber is so laggy I can’t deal with it. Whatsapp is miles better but now I wonder about privacy now that fb have taken over. No doubt in a few weeks we’ll notice ‘pages you might like suggestions’ will be relevant to private conversations had with mates on what’s app.

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    Mute Martin J. McCarthy
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    Feb 25th 2014, 11:03 PM

    I’m no expert but I would expect people to bounce around from one free app to the next. It takes seconds and groups can reform in no time. Facebook will try to cull or own any threat to its platform, which I have to say, for me is becoming less interesting every day.

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    Mute Michael Hickey
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    Feb 25th 2014, 11:00 PM

    My daughter in Japan told us about Line over two years ago and we use it all the time, it is a superb messaging and call service, very clear with no delay between Ireland and Japan.

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    Mute Mohd Anwar
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    Mar 28th 2014, 10:24 AM

    LOVE IS LIFE

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