Pope consoles Congolese victims: ‘Your pain is my pain’

KINSHASA, Congo — Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Congo’s people to forgive those who committed “inhuman violence” against them, celebrating a Mass for 1 million people and then hearing firsthand of the atrocities some of them have endured: a teenage girl “raped like an animal” for months; a young man who watched as his father was decapitated; a former sex slave forced into cannibalism.

Congolese from the country’s east traveled to the capital, Kinshasa, to tell the pope of the horrific violence they suffered for years as rebel groups sought to gain territory in the mineral-rich region through attacks that forced about 5.7 million people to flee their homes.

Francis sat in silence as victim after victim came forward to tell their stories. He watched as they offered up at the foot of a crucifix a symbol of their pain: the machete used to maim and kill, or the straw mat on which they had been raped. When they knelt for a blessing, Francis placed his hand on their heads, or on the stumps of the arms that remained.

“Your tears are my tears; your pain is my pain,” Francis told them. “To every family that grieves or is displaced by the burning of villages and other war crimes, to the survivors of sexual violence and to every injured child and adult, I say: I am with you; I want to bring you God’s caress.”

Gregorio Borgia, Associated Press

Pope Francis caresses a victim of violence in eastern Congo on Wednesday at the Apostolic Nunciature in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.

The intimate encounter at the Vatican Embassy in Kinshasa was an extraordinary moment of a pope seeking to console his flock and shine a spotlight on what Francis has called a “forgotten genocide” that barely makes the news. Despite being home to one of the largest United Nations peacekeeping operations in the world, eastern Congo has been mired in violence since the early 1990s as rebels and militias vie for control of mineral-rich territory.

“What a scandal and what hypocrisy, as people are being raped and killed, while the commerce that causes this violence and death continues to flourish!” Francis said of the foreign powers and extraction industries exploiting Congo’s east. “Enough!”

Francis originally planned to visit the eastern province of North Kivu, where rebel groups intensified attacks in the past year, when his trip was initially scheduled for July.

But after the trip was rescheduled, the Vatican had to cancel the visit to Goma due to the fighting in Congo, where already some 26.4 million people face hunger, according to the World Food Program.

Gregorio Borgia, Associated Press

Faithful wait Wednesday at Ndolo airport, where Pope Francis will preside over the Holy Mass in Kinshasa, Congo.

Instead, residents of the east came to Francis.

Ladislas Kambale Kombi, from the Beni area of eastern North Kivu province, told Francis of watching as men in military uniforms decapitated his father, placed his head in a basket and then took off with his mother, whom he never saw again.

“At night, I cannot sleep,” he said. “It is hard to understand such wickedness, such near-animal-like brutality.”

Bijoux Makumbi Kamala, 17, told of being kidnapped in 2020 by rebels in Walikale, in North Kivu province, as she went to fetch water. Through a translator, she said she was raped daily by the commander until she escaped after 19 months.

“It was useless to scream, because no one could hear me or come to my rescue,” she said. She gave birth to twin girls and found consolation through the Catholic Church.

Those who told their stories to Francis gave their names at the start of their testimony.

Jerome Delay, Associated Press

Pope Francis arrives Wednesday at Ndolo airport to celebrate Holy Mass, in Kinshasa, Congo.

Emelda M’karhungulu, from a village near Bukavu in Congo’s South Kivu province, spoke through a translator of having been kept as a sexual slave for three months at age 16 by armed men who invaded her village in 2005. She said she was raped daily by five to 10 men who then forced their captives to eat the flesh of the men they had killed, mixed with animal meat and maize paste.

“That was our food each day; whoever refused they would behead and would feed them to us,” she said. M’karhungulu said she eventually escaped one day when fetching water.

While forced cannibalism is not known to be widespread, the U.N. and human rights groups documented how it was used as a weapon of war in the early 2000s in parts of eastern Congo.

A statement prepared months ago by Désiré Dhetsina was read aloud on his behalf; Dhetsina disappeared after surviving an attack Feb. 1, 2022, on a camp for internally displaced people in Ituri province, on Congo’s northeastern border with Uganda.

“I saw savagery: People carved up like meat in a butcher shop; women disemboweled, men decapitated,” Dhetsina reported. As his story was read to Francis, two women stood up and raised the stumps that remained of their mutilated arms.

Samy Ntumba Shambuyi, Associated Press

Worshippers gather Wednesday at Ndolo airport for a Holy Mass with Pope Francis in Kinshasa, Congo.

Francis condemned the violence and urged the Congolese victims to use their pain for good, to sow peace and reconciliation. It was a message he also delivered earlier in the day at a Mass to the throngs at Kinshasa’s Ndolo airport, where he cited the example of Christ who forgave those who betrayed him.