Commissioners Piebalgs and Georgieva meet Dr Mukwege from the Panzi hospital in DRC
Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and his colleague, EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva, met today with Dr Denis Mukwege, the founder of the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The hospital cares for victims of rape – a crime that affects hundreds of thousands of women in the DRC every year. Dr Mukwege is in Brussels following a brutal attack against him on 25 October, in which he was almost killed. A member of his staff lost his life in the incident. Commissioner Piebalgs expressed full support for his action in favour of women victims of sexual violence and confessed that he was deeply moved by what we just heard. Commissioner also added that the EU is currently working with the government of DRC to launch in the coming months a new programme on this matter worth €20 million. The European Commission has been helping the important work of this hospital since 2004 with close to 5 million EUR in humanitarian aid. Dr Mukwege intends to return to the hospital and continue to save the lives and restore the dignity of the thousands of Congolese women who need emergency medical care after falling victims to rape.
