KINSHASA, Congo — Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Congo’s folks to forgive those that dedicated “inhuman violence” in opposition to them, celebrating a Mass for 1 million folks after which listening to firsthand of the atrocities a few of them have endured: a teenage woman “raped like an animal” for months; a younger man who watched as his father was decapitated; a former intercourse slave compelled into cannibalism.

Congolese from the nation’s east traveled to the capital, Kinshasa, to inform the pope of the horrific violence they suffered for years as insurgent teams sought to achieve territory within the mineral-rich area by means of assaults that compelled about 5.7 million folks to flee their properties.

Francis sat in silence as sufferer after sufferer got here ahead to inform their tales. He watched as they provided up on the foot of a crucifix a logo of their ache: the machete used to maim and kill, or the straw mat on which they’d been raped. When they knelt for a blessing, Francis positioned 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 advised 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.”

The intimate encounter on the Vatican Embassy in Kinshasa was a rare second of a pope in search of to console his flock and shine a highlight on what Francis has referred to as a “forgotten genocide” that hardly makes the information. Despite being residence to one of many largest United Nations peacekeeping operations on this planet, jap Congo has been mired in violence for the reason that early Nineteen Nineties as rebels and militias vie for management 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 stated of the international powers and extraction industries exploiting Congo’s east. “Enough!”

Francis initially deliberate to go to the jap province of North Kivu, the place insurgent teams intensified assaults previously yr, when his journey was initially scheduled for July.

But after the journey was rescheduled, the Vatican needed to cancel the go to to Goma as a result of preventing in Congo, the place already some 26.4 million folks face starvation, in line with the World Food Program.

Instead, residents of the east got here to Francis.

Ladislas Kambale Kombi, from the Beni space of jap North Kivu province, advised Francis of watching as males in army uniforms decapitated his father, positioned his head in a basket after which took off together with his mom, whom he by no means noticed once more.

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

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

“It was useless to scream, because no one could hear me or come to my rescue,” she stated. She gave start to twin women and located comfort by means of the Catholic Church.

Those who advised their tales to Francis gave their names at the beginning of their testimony.

Emelda M’karhungulu, from a village close to Bukavu in Congo’s South Kivu province, spoke by means of a translator of getting been stored as a sexual slave for 3 months at age 16 by armed males who invaded her village in 2005. She stated she was raped day by day by 5 to 10 males who then compelled their captives to eat the flesh of the lads they’d killed, blended with animal meat and maize paste.

“That was our food each day; whoever refused they would behead and would feed them to us,” she stated. M’karhungulu stated she ultimately escaped in the future when fetching water.

While compelled cannibalism shouldn’t be identified to be widespread, the U.N. and human rights teams documented the way it was used as a weapon of warfare within the early 2000s in components of jap Congo.

An announcement ready months in the past by Désiré Dhetsina was learn aloud on his behalf; Dhetsina disappeared after surviving an assault Feb. 1, 2022, on a camp for internally displaced folks 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 learn to Francis, two girls stood up and raised the stumps that remained of their mutilated arms.

Francis condemned the violence and urged the Congolese victims to make use of their ache for good, to sow peace and reconciliation. It was a message he additionally delivered earlier within the day at a Mass to the throngs at Kinshasa’s Ndolo airport, the place he cited the instance of Christ who forgave those that betrayed him.