Congo: 'We Are Fighters, Too'

Mar 7, 2019 | Allison Shelley
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Since the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide fled into eastern Congo, the region has been consumed by war. Armed groups proliferated, some from Rwanda and others locally born, and now there are more than 120 operating in North and South Kivu provinces alone. Those armed, including militias called Mai-Mai and rebel forces, battle for land control against or alongside the government military. Many are small and protect just one or two villages, while others have merged and grown big enough to hold entire ranges of hills. 

When women are mentioned in stories about Congo, it's often as civilian victims of war-related rape. But women have always inhabited a much wider range of roles. In the country's many fighting forces, women work as combatants, child-care attendants, medics, cooks and spies.