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By IslamOnline.net & Newspapers
CAIRO — One week after a deadly crackdown by the military junta in Muslim-majority Guinea on opposition supporters, horrific stories about gang raping of women are surfacing.
“We heard gunfire (and) I tried to flee,” a middle-aged woman, who participated in last week's opposition protest at Conakry stadium, told The New York Times on Tuesday, October 6.
But as the terrified woman tried to flee, she was barred by soldiers.
"(Suddenly) it was like a henhouse.”
One soldier hit her on the head with his rifle and then started to sexually abuse her.
“He hit me and tore my clothes off. (Then) he put his hand inside me,” said the tearful woman.
The UN said 150 were killed in the crackdown, while the Guinean Human Rights Organization put the toll at 157.
Human rights activists say they had collated testimony from around 30 women who said they had been raped during the crackdown.
"I'm 57 and they stripped me naked!" said one woman, showing bruised arms and buttocks.
"A soldier had a knife, he ripped all my clothes,” she recalled, painfully.
"I told them, 'I'm your mother.' They jabbed me in the buttocks with a knife, they beat me terribly."
The woman has seen several other women being forcibly stripped naked and abused.
"I saw soldiers putting their rifles into women's private parts while they were hitting me."
Unprecedented
The traumatized women say the nightmare would leave them with psychological scares for as long as they live.
“We are traumatized,” the middle-aged woman said slowly, looking down.
“I can’t sleep at night, after what I saw….And I am afraid.”
The mass rapes are raising eyebrows in the west African country, where Muslims constitute nearly 85 percent of the 10-million population.
“This time, a new stage has been reached,” Sidya Touré, a former prime minister who was beaten at the stadium, told the Times.
“Women as battlefield targets. We could never have imagined that.”
Touré, now an opposition leader, said he was women being molested women using rifle barrels.
“Where could people get the idea to start raping women in broad daylight?” he said.
“It’s so contrary to our culture.”
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