( CNN ) -- The number of girls being raped has increased sharply since fighting intensified in the Democratic Republic of Congo , a humanitarian group said Tuesday . A survey of children at refugee camps finds rapes of girls under age 17 are increasing . Also , the recent fighting between rebels and the Congo government has heightened the threat of children being recruited as soldiers , said World Vision . `` A silent war has been waged against women and children , '' said Sue Mbaya , the humanitarian group 's Africa advocacy director . `` Women and girls in the hundreds have been targets of opportunistic and brutal rape , while children are also being targeted for recruitment or re-recruitment as child soldiers . '' World Vision said they surveyed children at six refugee camps in the country , finding that 120 girls under the age of 17 reported being raped in October . That 's compared to five reported cases in April and June . Mbaya was scheduled to address the issue Tuesday during a report to the United Nations Security Council . The fighting , which began in August , prompted the U.N. Security Council to approve sending more than 3,000 troops in coming weeks to bolster the 17,000-strong peacekeeping force already there . A U.N. envoy has also been sent to Congo to conduct peace talks between the government and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda . The spiraling violence in eastern Congo has displaced an estimated 250,000 people -- many of whom have fled to refugee camps . The fighting is spurred by lingering tensions over the 1994 slaughter of ethnic Tutsis by majority Hutus in neighboring Rwanda . Nkunda has said his forces are fighting to defend Congolese Tutsis from Hutu militants who escaped to Congo .
Aid group says rape reports increase as fighting intensified . The U.N. estimates that more than 10,000 people have been killed in the conflict since mid-April. Violence in eastern Congo has displaced an estimated 250,000 people .