“My Heart Is Cut”

…At the market of Tiapleu…they [the rebels] tried to force my brother to rape me and he refused and so they killed him. They took me and for a week they raped me all the time, they locked me in a home. We were about ten or fifteen girls there, being raped. When they weren’t raping me I just had to be there. They used to tie me up with my legs spread apart and arms tied behind me to rape me. They’d rape me three or four of them in the night, they would put their guns next to you and if you refuse they kill you. They killed one of my friends and made us bury her…
—Victim Testimony to Human Rights Watch

August 2007   Volume 19, No. 11(A)