A shocking footage from the Democratic Republic of Congo has surfaced online that shows a woman being raped in public, whipped and executed as a punishment for serving "forbidden fish" to a group of anti-government rebels. The rebels executed the woman in front of a cheering crowd and later drank her blood.
The horrifying video of the incident that shows a group that claimed loyalty to the Kamuina Nsapu rebels beating the woman has gone viral on the messaging app WhatsApp. The video was shot in April 2017, but it surfaced online only recently.
According to France 24, the woman served fish to the rebels when they visited her restaurant. The rebels believe that they should not eat meat or fish while fighting, but the woman "broke their protection charm."
They then ordered her stepson to rape her in the main public square of Luebo, a town of 40,000 people.
"They said she gave them beans that contained pieces of a small, local fish," a Luebo resident told France 24.
"Convinced that she had broken their protection charms, the council of rebels sentenced both the woman and the son of her husband's second wife [the young man was also working there that day] to commit incest in public."
Another woman is seen whipping the victim and her stepson with branches, while the onlookers cheer and record the video. The rebels then killed the woman and her stepson with the machetes and then they drank the victims' blood.
The residents said that they were forced to watch the punishments given to the woman and her stepson. "We had no choice: to stand up to them would have meant death. We were left to fend for ourselves against the armed militants. The police fled a week earlier," a local said.
Anaclet Tshimbalanga, a specialist in Congolese customs, France 24 that the punishment given to the woman goes contrary to local customs.
"The punishment given to this woman, for example, goes completely contrary to local customs, which forbid both the death sentence and incest. These cases of extreme violence are a result of drugs or, sometimes, of people getting caught up in the frenzy and excitement of bloodshed and war," he said.
