An alarming number of survivors of sexual violence have been treated by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2025 so far, according to a report issued by the medical organisation.
In response, MSF is calling for all parties to the conflict to improve the safety of civilians and access to care for all. The international aid organisation is also urging the international community to prioritise care for survivors despite the current funding cuts.
The number of victims treated by MSF has surged in the past three years, since the resumption of fighting between the Congolese army, the armed group M23/AFC (Alliance Fleuve Congo), and their respective allies. MSF reports that the crisis is particularly acute in North Kivu, where MSF teams treated an unprecedented number of victims—nearly 40,000—in 2024.
Since January 2025, MSF teams have treated an alarmingly high number of survivors at the facilities we support in North and South Kivu. “The context in this region has changed, but the problem of sexual violence—which disproportionately affects women—has not,” explains François Calas, head of MSF’s program in North Kivu. Sexual violence remains a medical emergency that requires immediate action.
Goma’s camps, housing more than 650,000 displaced people, were dismantled in February 2025 following the capture of the city by M23/AFC. However, MSF teams continue to treat new victims of sexual violence every day in facilities in and around the city, totaling nearly 7,400 patients between January and April 2025. Around 10 miles west of Goma, in the small town of Saké, more than 2,400 survivors were treated over the same period.
Since the camps were dismantled, many displaced women have been unable or unwilling to return home to their villages and are often left alone with their children where they are sheltering. Most assaults reported by victims in 2025 were committed under the threat or force of a weapon by individuals who could not be identified due to the proliferation of weapons, persistent insecurity, and the large number of people carrying weapons—both civilians and militants.
On the outskirts of Goma and Saké, MSF finds, many victims say they were attacked on the roads or in the fields. For example, in South Kivu, the situation is also worrying. In the territories of Kalehe and Uvira, MSF teams have treated nearly 700 victims of sexual violence since the beginning of 2025. Most of the accounts gathered describe acts committed at gunpoint.
Beyond the health and psychological impact of sexual violence, the social consequences are devastating, and include family and social rejection, stigma, divorce, suicidal thoughts, and immense difficulty for survivors to continue living in the locations where they were assaulted.
The situation is even more worrying, MSF reports, because access to treatment services is becoming increasingly difficult. Several health facilities in the provinces of North and South Kivu have already run out of medicines and kits they need to treat survivors of sexual violence.
