More than 20 women prisoners were raped after a riot broke out in a jail in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in September, investigators said Tuesday.
The French station Radio France Internationale (RFI), which broke the story, said some of the women were raped for days by male convicts after prison authorities lost control of the facility.
The riot erupted in a prison in Lubumbashi on September 25 as the city was attacked by a militia group.
Public prosecutor Teddy Katumbo Lumbu told AFP: “According to the prison governor, all the women there were raped. There were about 50 of them.”
He said he had dispatched investigators to the jail.
Of 25 women who had spoken to his team in early October, “21 said they had been the victim of rape, one of whom was a minor,” he said.
Fifteen prisoners have been charged with rape, arson, property damage and other crimes, he said.
RFI said the women were “regularly raped over three days, some of them by around 20 inmates. Their ordeal ended only…