Current Crisis

The crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is virtually unparalleled in the world today as the result of a history of exploitation, corruption, impunity and neglect.  Two consecutive wars in 1996 and 1998 instigated by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda as a result of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda have critically exasperated the destabilization of an already challenged country.  Although the conflict officially came to an end in July of 2002 with the signing of the Pretoria Accord the fighting continues as proxy forces and rebel groups vie for control of the vast mineral resources particularly in the eastern region.    Currently the conflict and resulting humanitarian crisis is considered to be the deadliest since the holocaust of World War II with an estimated death toll of over 6 million mostly from starvation, malnutrition and disease due to the collapse of infrastructure and institutions as sporadic fighting continues unabated.

“No report however, can adequately describe the horrors experienced by the civilian population in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where almost every single individual has an experience to narrate of suffering and loss. In some cases, victims became perpetrators, while perpetrators were themselves sometimes subjected to serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, in a cycle of violence that has not yet abated.”  

2010 opening remarks in the forward to the UN Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003 – published October 2010.  Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

 

Civilians dying at an estimated 31,000 – 45,000 per month

Estimated 6 – 7 million have died

Half of the deaths are children under the age of 5

Refugees: 1.7 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

Widespread famine and disease

Rape as a tool of war – forced incest, elderly, children, women and men

Child Soldiers: Children recruited as soldiers on a regular basis

Brutal killings sometimes with the most primitive of weapons

Natural resources are being plundered and Congo does not benefit

Forced labor – children as young a 12 forced to work in the mines

The severely destabilized region effects all of Africa and thus the world

Large supplies of uranium in uncontrolled region is a terrorist threat