The ‘man who repairs women’ on rape as a weapon and how the world forgot the DRC

‘I’d like the Congolese to feel solidarity from the international community,’ says Denis Mukwege, ‘because they’re human beings and they need that solidarity.’ Photograph: Marcus Ericsson/Alamy

Walking around a camp for displaced people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo this year, the Nobel peace laureate Dr Denis Mukwege was filled with shame. Around him were women, many of them survivors of rape, living in destitution with no access to clean water or to any protection.

The women had left their homes after fighting between the Congolese army and the M23 rebel group resumed in North Kivu province three years ago. Since then, aid agencies have reported an increase in sexual violence in the region. In April last year, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said it was treating 48 new survivors a day among the displaced people living in camps around the city of Goma.