LUVUNGI - Anna Burano, 80, trembles as she recounts a July night when she was among hundreds of women raped during an orgy of violence by Hutu rebels and Congolese militia in eastern DR Congo.

"They dragged me behind the house, tore off my clothes and threw me onto the ground. I said to myself, 'This is it, I am going to die,'" she said of her ordeal, where four men took turns in raping her.

"My blood flowed eveywhere. When it was over, they used a machete to cut my hand between the thumb and index finger," Burano added, her hand wrapped in a dirty bandage.

The campaign of rape, violence and pillaging took place on the night of July 30 in Luvungi, a mountainous settlement of around 2,000 inhabitants in a vast mineral-rich area of the Nord-Kivu province.

In groups of between two and seven, rebel Hutu forces forced their way into mud huts. The men had either fled to nearby villages or were used by rebels as porters.

The rebels held torches to their victims, beat and undressed them. They searched their genitals for hidden gold and wiped their fingers on the victims' faces.

Then, one by one, each rebel raped the women, sometimes with their screaming infant children watching on. The thugs left after pillaging their houses.

According to village chief Livingstone Bubusa, more than 350 rebels - from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) accompanied by local Mai Mai militia - raped 284 females aged between 13 and 80. Local authorities believe up to 384 women were raped that night.

Bubusa was held captive by the rebels in a nearby village during the attacks.

He was forced to attend the last rebel meeting, just before the rapes started, where men in military uniform and armed with Kalashnikovs listened as Lionceau, a local FDLR coordinator, and Mai-Mai chief, Mayele barked orders: "You all know the Luvungi area. One group will take Irameso area. Another will take the shopping centre. A third group will take the Majengo quarter. Have you understood? Now let's go!"

"There was no hesitation, they went straight to work...and then I heard the screams and cries of women from all sides," Bubusa said.

Rebel leaders stayed in Luvungi until August 3, but their men spread out to eight nearby villages, including one where 20 women were raped.

Luvungi, some 70 kilometres (43 miles) from Walikale, the main town in the region of the same name, is isolated with erratic telecommunications links, no electricity and just one road leading to the provincial capital Goma.

FDLR and local militiamen Mai-Mai, who control the region's gold and mineral wealth, took advantage of its vast forest area to carry out the horrific rapes without fear of being found. A UN patrol group passed through Luvungi on August 2 but only took witness statements for the pillaging.

On Tuesday, a top UN official said the UN troops had failed the victims of mass rapes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 500 sex assaults have now been reported in the past month.

Atul Khare, under secretary general for peacekeeping operations, warned of a growing "culture of sexual violence" in the stricken region.

The UN official said the DR Congo government is primarily responsible for security, but added: "Clearly we have also failed. Our actions were not adequate, resulting in the unacceptable brutalization of the villages of the area. We must do better."

He added: "I feel personally guilty to the people who have suffered this brutalization." Nongovernmental organisation International Medical Corps said they had treated more than 242 victims in their local health centres.

The FDLR has been active in eastern DR Congo since the mid-1990s and is feared for its brutality. Its older members are accused by Rwanda of taking part in the 1994 genocide of 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, in the neighbouring country.

UN Special representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstroem has threatened to have people suspected of these rapes prosecuted for war crimes.