Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the UN called reports of mass rape in the Congo “outrageous”, as the United Nations went on the defense over allegations that they’d known about the rapes longer than initially reported.

The United Nations had reported that they’d had reports from the International Medical Corps of Congolese and Rwandan rebels in the eastern Congo raping up to 240 civilians between July 30th and August 3rd.

The victims were women and children, with reports of four baby boys having been sodomised as well.

Up to 15% of rape victims in the Congo are children, according to reports.

The rapes were first made public on August 22nd, when the UN reported that 156 villagers in the region had been raped.

That number was later increased to over 240 and the UN convened an emergency meeting in New York to discuss the situation.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has undergone five name changes in the last century as part of a violent and unstable history that began with colonization of the region in Africa by Belgium in the 19th century.

The country remains politically and economically weak following a civil war funded on both sides by various foreign governments.

Since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the country's east has been plagued by displaced Rwandan rebels operating in the rural area.

An average of 1,400 innocent civilians have died everyday since 1998, making the ongoing situation in the DRC one of the greatest and most under-reported human tragedies of our time.

The International Medical Corps is an independent relief organisation that works in over 50 countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Ban Ki-moon called the rapes by rebels “outrageous”, but some have begun to question how much information the UN had, and when.

The UN had initially said it did not learn about the attacks in Congo until August 12, but International Medical Corps have said they informed the UN of the rapes on August 6th.

An internal email distributed by the UN warned all relief agencies working in the area to take extra care as rebels had taken over some villages and were reportedly committing rape.

On August 10, the UN posted another notice saying that 25 women had been raped in the village of Mpofi, which had fallen into the hands of a rebel group called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

A UN spokesperson has said that the exact timeline of events and information is still being worked out. He said that with many agencies working in the same area and a number of sometimes contradictory reports being made each day, it can be difficult to relay the right information up the organisations hierarchy.

The U.N. currently has a peace-keeping presence of 80 on the ground in the region under question, which is about four times the size of Manhattan.