war & armed conflict in DR Congo

BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo - The last thing 11-year-old Mave Grace saw before falling unconscious was men with machetes cutting open her pregnant mother's belly and killing the unborn child. When Mave woke she was surrounded by dead bodies. Her left hand was cut off just above the wrist.

Even in the remote green forested valleys and hills of the far east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the battle took place, few paid much attention. Such scrappy, bloody confrontations have become an almost daily occurrence. Bullets shattered Kapitu's right arm and damaged his intestines ...

But Rochelle's extreme youth didn't spare her from the anger and rage of the militia who stormed her village in Ituri Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo last month. Her face has a deep scar stretching across it, just missing her left eye and there is a wound on the top of her skull where her attacker ...

For many living in the region, the fresh outbreak of violence sparks painful memories of an “ethnic” war between Lendu and Hema that spanned 1998 to 2003, part of a series of conflicts all across eastern Congo that left millions dead from violence, hunger, and disease. Three warlords from Ituri Province ...

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa last week took his election campaign begging bowl to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila, where the two leaders also discussed the political and security situation in their countries and Zimbabwe's long-standing demand for US$1 billion ...

Nor are these “long wars” – which could include Somalia (at war since 1991) or Libya (since 2011) or Mali (since 2012) – restricted to the Islamic world. There is South Sudan, where a vicious four-year-old civil war is intensifying, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more protests ended in ...

The second deadly attack in a month happened where land disputes have reignited a long-dormant ethnic conflict and caused thousands to flee. .... Swiss director Milo Rau's portrayal of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been described as "the most ambitious political theater ever made.

The geopolitical situations in the Great Lakes region, currently characterised by damaged relations between neighbouring countries and a political impasse inside the Democratic Republic of Congo could plunge the region into another conflict. Last week, at least 72 people were killed in renewed fighting ...

We're in the Kasai region – an area the size of Germany – for the past 18 months riven by a conflict that is, worryingly to all observers, taking an increasingly tribal and ethnic dimension. One and half million people have been forced from their homes and farms. That accounts for the hunger. But it doesn't ...

These factors sparked the world's deadliest war since WWII in Congo from 1998-2003, and they could do so again according to a deep dive from the Economist. Why it matters: Seven years into a five year term, President Joseph Kabila is weak and deeply unpopular. “His authority is disintegrating. And with it, central Africa ...

If a neighbouring power were to intervene, it would not be the first time for the Congo. In the First Congo War (1996-97), Angola, Uganda and Rwanda all invaded successfully and ended the regime of President Mobutu. In the Second Congo War (1998-2003), those same three countries again sent their ...

NO CONFLICT since the 1940s has been bloodier, yet few have been more completely ignored. Estimates of the death toll in Congo between 1998 and 2003 range from roughly 1m to more than 5m—no one counted the corpses. Taking the midpoint, the cost in lives was higher than that in Syria, Iraq, ...

The great Congo war of 1998-2003 was the most lethal on any continent in most people's lifetimes. It sucked in soldiers from eight other countries. Mass rape became routine. No one knows how many people died of machete wounds, hunger and disease. Estimates range from 1m to over 5m. Four factors ...

Sparked by the Second Congo War, fighting between the two tribes shook the region between 1999 and 2003, during which an estimated 60,000 people were killed and 500,000 displaced. Violence continued in the region until 2007 after which Ituri has enjoyed a relative peace. Though it has been ...

Congolese security forces and armed groups have killed thousands of civilians in the past two years, adding to at least six million Congolese who have died from conflict-related causes over the past two decades – making the conflict in Congo the world's deadliest since World War II. Today, some 4.5 ...

Speaking in the House of Lords, Archbishop Welby said that he had spoken to the Archbishop of Congo this week, and was reminded that “the war has created two million refugees who are now living in conditions of immeasurable suffering, and four million casualties over the past 20 years.” Last month ...