Secretary of State Hillary Clinton writes a note to HEAL Africa 2009

Secretary of State Clinton wrote, "In 11 days of travel across Africa, I saw humanity at its worst - and at its best. In Goma …I saw both. Women and girls in particular have been victimized on an unimaginable scale, as sexual and gender-based violence has become a tactic of war and has reached epidemic proportions. Some 1,100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day.

I visited a hospital run by the organization HEAL Africa and met a woman who told me that she was eight months' pregnant when she was attacked. She was at home when a group of men broke in. They took her husband and two of their children and shot them in the front yard, before returning into the house to shoot her other two children. Then they beat and gang-raped her and left her for dead. But she wasn't dead. She fought for life and her neighbors managed to get her to the hospital - 85 kilometers' away. I came to Goma to send a clear message: the United States condemns these attacks and all those who commit them and abet them. They are crimes against humanity…These acts don't just harm a single individual, or a single family, or village, or group. They shred the fabric that weaves us together as human beings. Such atrocities have no place in any society. This truly is humanity at its worst. But there is reason to hope.

In Goma, I met doctors and advocates who work every day to repair the broken bodies and spirits of women who have been raped, often by gangs, and often in such brutal fashion that they can no longer bear children, or walk or work. Caregivers like Lyn Lusi, who founded HEAL Africa in Goma, and Dr. Denis Mukwege, who founded the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, represent humanity at its best."

Many blessings on the staff and patients of Heal Africa. Who are providing both healing and hope to the women and girls of the DRC. Thanks also for your work with HIV/AIDS. It is an honor to support your work.

God Bless you -

Hillary Rodham Clinton

US Sectetary of State

August 11, 2009