A vast country with immense economic resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa’s world war.
This has left it in the grip of a humanitarian crisis. The five-year conflict pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. Despite a peace deal and the formation of a transitional government in 2003, people in the east of the country remain in terror of marauding militia and the army.
The war claimed an estimated four million lives, either as a direct result of fighting or because of disease and malnutrition. It has been called possibly the worst emergency to unfold in Africa in recent decades.The war had an economic as well as a political side. Fighting was fuelled by the country’s vast mineral wealth, with all sides taking advantage of the anarchy to plunder natural resources.
- “the rape capital of the world”.
— UN official
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), rape forms part of the daily reality for women living in the North Kivu province, where violence has reigned for several years. As many as 14 women are raped every day in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, almost half of them in broad daylight and more than half in their own homes, according to a study published.
The United Nations is investigating claims that rebel fighters raped more than 200 women and baby boys. DR Congo has a shocking reputation for sexual violence. In April, a senior UN official said it was “the rape capital of the world”.
A report by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative showed that 60% of rape victims in South Kivu province had been gang-raped by armed men. More than than half of the assaults took place in the victims’ homes, the report said, and an increasing number of attacks were being carried out by civilians. More than 8,000 women were raped during fighting in 2009, the UN says.
Rebel General Laurent Nkunda has long sought to portray himself as the only man who can protect his Tutsi community in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo from Hutu forces. This led to accusations that he was a stooge of the Tutsi-led Rwandan government. But in a surprising about-turn, it is the Rwandans who have finally arrested him in January 2009.
All this is, of course, good news for the civilians who have suffered terribly from the fighting. But it doesn’t mean the war is over.
In fact UN diplomats have warned that it could even deteriorate in the short term. The new joint Congolese-Rwandan force is yet to take on the Hutu militias every bit as ruthless as the Lord’s Resistance Army which has killed at least 600 civilians in reprisals for a similar multi-national offensive further to the north. And eastern Congo is – still – a bewildering patchwork of warlords who will scramble to fill the vacuum. Gen Nkunda’s arrest takes one element out of the problem, but it by no means solves it.
The conflict.
