‘They turn our farms into rape centres’: Russian mercenaries accused of abuse in Central African Republic

Koko was 17 when she and her 15-year-old sister were raped in her family's fields in Central African Republic. Her sister was also badly beaten by the men. Photograph: Philip Obaji Jr

The two sisters had just arrived at their family’s field when two Russian mercenaries showed up. They held the girls at gunpoint and took turns raping them. “We told them we were virgins and begged them not to touch us. But they wouldn’t listen,” says Koko*.

She was 17 when the attack happened on a Saturday morning last September in the family’s field of yams and cassava in Ngaguene village, near the Central African Republic (CAR) town of Bouar.