More than 80 people, including 21 staff members of the World Health Organization, have responded to the violence and harassment in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the Central African country struggles with the second Ebola outbreak in the world, a report has found.
Mu independent research, page 35 published Tuesday, the commission of inquiry found that nine cases of rape were committed, some of which allegedly took place when he was offered a chance to work. In some cases, so-called abusers refuse to wear condoms. Some of the alleged victims said they were forced by their abusers to have an abortion after pregnancy, “if necessary, by giving them drugs or injections”.
The report stated that 29 of all pregnant women were detained after being raped, 22 of them were abducted. According to the report, the violence was perpetrated by national and international staff. The biggest threat of the Ebola epidemic, which occurred between 2018 and 2020, was in North Kivu, where war was raging.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has been director-general of WHO since 2017, apologized to those who were harassed by journalists on Tuesday.
“We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the WHO’s recruitment and defense process,” he said, vowing to take action and adding that the World Health Organization has terminated the contracts of four people who were still working with the agency when it was notified of the allegations.
“The failure of staff at WHO to respond adequately to reports of rape and abuse is as bad as the incidents,” he added.
Tedros, the first African to lead the UN, wants a re-election as director-general, according to people familiar with the matter, with no opposition.
The Ethiopian-born has not officially said he will not support the re-election of Tedros – having become a senior member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, which is waging a civil war with the government in Addis Ababa – but it is unlikely to do so, officials have already said. He also said Tigray’s activities were dangerous, with Ethiopian officials accusing him of obtaining the embassy’s assistance with TPLF weapons, which he refused.
Concerning the atrocities, Tedros said: “I was not told about this. Maybe I should ask questions, and what’s coming up, what we’re doing, we should ask questions. “He did not answer the question if he wanted to resign as director-general. WHO has not responded to a request for comment.
The report said the investigators “could not determine whether the Tedros” or other officials “were individually, directly and immediately informed of any incident of rape and torture before reporting it to reporters”. It also stated that “it has no information yet to give Tedros the position [and other officials] in relation to the mistreatment of incidents of rape and torture ”.
Aïchatou Mindaoudou, chair of the research committee, said the researchers did not know at the beginning of the study that there were “some senior WHO experts who knew what was going on and did nothing. We found this out in our research.”
The report states that WHO was first aware of the incident in early May 2019, according to internal documents which the Commission reviewed.
Julienne Lusenge, who is also the chairperson, said there were “failures, negligence and a lack of work ethic, an investigation that did not immediately begin based on comments immediately under supervision by supervisors”.
Investigators have gone to Goma in the DRC to present the report there, he said. Mindaoudou thanked reporters for first explaining this.
The DRC began to be persecuted by the United Nations, especially the peacekeepers.