“I’ve been in a lot of very difficult and terrible settings,” American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after visiting the women of Goma, Congo. “And I was just overwhelmed by what I saw.”

“It is almost impossible to describe the level of suffering,” she said. Eastern Congo’s rape epidemic, she added, “is just horrific.”

Hillary is the first secretary of state to visit the Congo’s war zone, where she announced American intentions to fight the outrageous, mind-boggling levels of sexual violence, a problem Clinton called “evil in its basest form.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton with patients and staff members of a clinic in Goma, Congo, on Tuesday. Photo by Roberto SchmidtThe details of America’s $17 million aid plan would train doctors, supply rape victims with video cameras to document violence, send American military engineers to help build facilities and train Congolese police officers, especially female police officers, to crack down on rapists.

The NYTimes notes that 18,000 peacekeepers, various peace treaties or other high-level diplomatic visits have not stemmed the violence.

Christine Schuler-DeSchryver, a well-known anti-rape activist, vented about all the empty promises from the stream of high-ranking visitors who have recently come to eastern Congo, “one more important than the next.”

She pressed Mrs. Clinton to do more to end the criminally-controlled mineral trade.

“Madame Secretary,” she said, “we want you to be our spokesperson, our voice.”

After five hours on the ground in Goma, Mrs. Clinton climbed back on the plane, this time bound for Nigeria. She seemed drained.

“It was an incredibly emotional experience,” she said.