There is no emoticon for the pain on my face at reading this

Congo mass rape numbers rise to 240 - UN

Some 240 women, girls and babies may have been raped after rebels recently seized a town in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN says.

It pains me that any human being would do this, would try to dehumanise, physically and emotionally traumatise, and shame another being in this way. In doing so, they are the ones who shed their humanity, who bring for the darker human nature that we think of almost bestial, yet beasts do not do this sort of thing, humans do. That they can do so to children is especially heinous. The systematic use of rape is a crime against humanity as well as the victim.

This is one village, one brief time in the morass of war in the Congo. So many women and children have suffered this fate, and with horrible wounds, fistulae, not to mention the emotional and social scars.

This must stop. Please, my Gods, let this stop.