SILENT VICTIMS

Report: 4 Million Kids Orphaned in Congo

In the last 20 years.

At least four million children have lost one parent—or more—to violence or disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 20 years, according to an Associated Press study. More than 26 million orphans are living in central and west Africa, the United Nations reports. “They are the orphans with a story of violence since 1994—it’s a generation of victims that continues,” Francisca Ichimpaye, a senior monitor at the En Avant Les Enfants INUKA center, told the AP. The children, she continued, “lose their story in the violence.” The news agency profiled children who were orphaned through violent means, including a 6-year-old who was found in a pile of bodies after a rebel attack on his village several months ago. Alpha Meleki was reportedly shot and left for dead in the pile. Another child, Moise Munoka, 7, lost his mother when she died from health complications through a series of violent rapes.