Pascaline, 22, recalls the chilling words of her attacker in the early hours of January 27 at Munzenze Prison in Goma, eastern DR Congo: “If you try to escape, I will kill you.”
She was the second man to assault her that night. The first attack had been so violent that she lost consciousness. Pascaline and other women inmates were defenseless as male prisoners from the adjacent men’s block, “Safina,” scaled the walls and stormed their section.
“We heard them jumping on the water tanks. There were so many of them. The unlucky ones were raped; the lucky ones escaped unharmed,” she told the BBC.
That night, chaos engulfed the prison as M23 rebels advanced toward Goma. Prison guards had already fled, and gunfire rang out in the distance. Hours later, a fire—allegedly started by male inmates attempting to escape—engulfed the prison, killing 132 women and at least 25 children. A UN source reported the death toll at 153.
Returning to the charred remains of the prison a month later, Pascaline walks through the wreckage, overwhelmed by grief. “I didn’t know what was happening anymore,” she says. “Seeing others die made me realize I had to survive. God must have saved me.”
Another survivor, Nadine, 22, cannot escape the trauma. “At night, I see the dead bodies all over again. Instead of opening the doors, they left us to die like animals,” she says. Like Pascaline, she was also raped.
Florence, a 38-year-old survivor, believes the government bears responsibility for the loss of life. She claims that security forces, instead of intervening, fired tear gas into the women’s section, intensifying the flames. “Our eyes burned, and we could barely breathe,” she says.
Among the ashes, remnants of the victims remain—charred clothing, buttons, and a tiny pink sandal.
Sifa, 25, lies in a hospital tent, bandaged and in pain. She lost her two-year-old daughter, Esther, in the fire. “She was on my back when something fell on her—maybe a bomb. She died instantly,” Sifa says, her voice filled with anguish.
Despite the horrors of that night, no official investigations have taken place. Survivors feel abandoned, their suffering ignored. “No one will follow this case,” Sifa says. “No one will be held accountable. It’s already over.”
