For weeks, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning Congolese doctor has faced death threats, leading alarmed supporters to urge the United Nations to reinstate the peacekeepers who were withdrawn from his hospital months ago. On Wednesday, after international expressions of concern, the peacekeepers returned.
“They will be there as long as necessary,” a spokesman with the U.N. mission, Mathias Gillmann, told The Associated Press.
The death threats against Dr. Denis Mukwege, famous for his work with survivors of sexual assault at Panzi Hospital in eastern Congo, drew condemnation from U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet, Amnesty International, and others. Hundreds of people have marched in support of Mukwege in the eastern city of Bukavu, where his hospital is located.
Mukwege has had U.N. protection over the years since he survived an assassination attempt in 2012 while returning to his home.
On Wednesday, he thanked the U.N. peacekeepers for returning to the hospital “to assure the security of the patients and personnel.”
The peacekeepers were withdrawn this year amid the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, the U.N. said it could not provide protection indefinitely and the personal security of Congolese personalities is the responsibility of national authorities.
Gillmann said the U.N. is working on finding a new security arrangement with national police as the mission in Congo faces an expected reduction. The U.N. has trained Congolese security forces for such protection work in the future.
Those denouncing the death threats against Mukwege have not said where they originated, but a statement from Physicians for Human Rights last month said Mukwege has been the target of an “intimidation campaign” after a security adviser to the president in neighboring Rwanda, Gen. James Kabarebe, “denounced Dr. Mukwege on Rwandan state television.”
Mukwege has received death threats via text message, and he and his family have received threats on social media, the statement said.
“I have received various hate mail and members of my family have been intimidated and threatened,” Mukwege said in a separate statement posted by the Panzi Foundation.
Mukwege has long been outspoken about the need for accountability for the years of attacks by armed groups in eastern Congo that have killed thousands of people, and he seeks the implementation of recommendations in a years-old U.N. human rights report mapping abuses in the region between 1993 and 2003.
Eastern Congo remains one of the world’s most unstable regions, with millions of civilians displaced or living under the threat of attack.
In his Nobel speech in 2018, Mukwege repeated his call to act on the U.N. report, asking, “What is the world waiting for? … Let us have the courage to reveal the names of the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity to prevent them from continuing to plague the region.
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Source: washingtonpost
