SW News: The Holy Father Pope Francis reached out to the victims of violence and abuse in the eastern part of DRC on Wednesday, Feb. 1, saying, I am close to you. Your tears are my tears, your pain is my pain.” He said this while listening to the survivors of the attacks by insurgents in the eastern part of the country. They had gathered at the Apostolic Nunciature in the capital Kinshasa on Wednesday evening to recount their ordeal before the successor of St Peter.

“To every family in mourning or displaced by burned villages and other war crimes, to survivors of sexual violence, to every injured child and adult, I say: I am with you, I would like to bring you God's caress".

Pope Francis condemned the “armed violence, massacres, rapes, destruction and occupation of villages, looting of fields and livestock that continue to be perpetrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo". He also slammed yet again the bloody, illegal exploitation of the wealth of this country.

The Holy Father made a mention of the conflicts that are displacing millions from their homes and resulting in gross violations of human rights. Pope Francis said there are partisan struggles in which “dynamics intertwine ethnic, territorial and group; conflicts that have to do with land ownership, with the absence or weakness of institutions, hatreds in which the blasphemy of violence infiltrates in the name of a false god”.

His Holiness the pope stressed the need for reconciliation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and exhorted the wounded masses to forgive each other and resolve their differences. He reminded them that the Cross was “was an instrument of pain and death, the most terrible in Jesus' time, but, crossed by his love, it has become a universal instrument of reconciliation, a tree of life". The pontiff told those gathered there that only forgiveness opens the door to the future. “To be reconciled is to generate tomorrow: it is to believe in the future rather than remain anchored to the past.”

At the beginning of the event, the Holy Father was shown a video detailing the horrible atrocities inflicted on people in the east by the insurgents. He then attentively listened to the testimonies of the survivors of different age groups, including children, women and girls. One young man narrated how his father was chopped into pieces with a machete by assailants and how the weapon was later given to him to be submitted as proof to the troops. He recollected how his mother was abducted leaving him and his siblings orphaned. He then told the pope that he had forgiven the murderers and assailants and added that he would place that machete at the foot of the crucifix in the room.

A young woman’s testimony was read out in which she said how she was abducted while she was out to fetch water. She was handed over to the commander of the insurgents who kidnapped her and he raped her savagely. She was forced to undergo the ordeal several times a day for 19 months. Somehow she managed to escape only to discover that she was pregnant with twins. Yet another young woman narrated how her village was decimated by armed men who took her captive. She was forced to become a sex slave and was made to do gut-churning things while in captivity.

Each victim came forward declaring that they had forgiven their assailants and laid the instrument of torture, weapon and other objects connected to their captivity or ordeal at the foot of the crucifix before being blessed by the pope.

The event came to a conclusion with the singing of the Hail Mary in Swahili and the blessing of the Holy Father.