Country Information

Located in Central Africa, the DRC has a population of approximately 62.7 million. While the Congo has more than 200 distinct ethnic groups, the Mongo, Luba, Kongo and Mangbetu-Azande constitute nearly half of the population. The DRC is predominantly Christian (70%) with indigenous belief (20%) and Muslim (10%) minorities.

Political and Economic Environment

Exploitation and the struggle for power mark the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo through Belgian Colonial rule, the Cold War, the assassination of President Lumumba, the dictatorial rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, and the assassination of President Kabila. In the last decade, the country has been torn apart by conflict rooted in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and refugee crisis in eastern Congo.

Following the genocidal murder of nearly one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans fled to refugee camps in the DRC. Interahamwe Hutu militias, responsible for much of the genocide, reorganized in the refugee camps and held President Mobutu’s support.

The Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila, the Rwandan Patriotic Army's Paul Kagame, and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni formed an alliance to counter former president Mobutu's allegiance to the Rwandan Hutu militias in the refugee camps. The First Congo War, thus, began in the fall of 1996 with attacks on the Rwandan camps in eastern Congo. After routing the Hutu refugees and militia leaders, the alliance marched on Kinshasa, the DRC capital. In May 1997, Mobutu ceded authority and fled Kinshasa, allowing Laurent Kabila to take power.

Deterioration of the Kabila-Rwanda-Uganda alliance led to the removal of Rwandan forces from the western DRC. Rwanda then consolidated its control in the East by supporting the formation of a rebel group called the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), based in Goma. The Ugandans similarly backed an RCD faction further north, which subsequently splintered into a variety of insurgent groups.

Following an attempt by Rwanda and Uganda to march on Kinshasa in 1998, Laurent Kabila invited the Zimbabwean, Angolan, and Namibian armies to support him in the west, further complicating the fragmented armed conflict. In July 1999, all foreign armies signed the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement. It was followed by a UN Security Council recommendation for a UN peacekeeping force (MONUC - UN Organization Mission in the DRC) for the Congo. Laurent Kabila was assassinated in January 2001, and his son, Joseph, subsequently assumed power, proffering peace as his objective.

Under a peace deal signed in July 2003 with the Kinshasa government, Rwanda agreed to withdraw its troops in return for the disarmament of Hutu militiamen who were involved in Rwanda's genocide in 1994 and had continued fighting in the Congo. A similar withdrawal agreement was signed with Uganda in September. In December 2002, a comprehensive peace agreement was signed, formally ending the Second Congo War and providing for the establishment of a transitional government.

A draft constitution was approved in a national referendum in December 2005. The DRC held its first multi-party elections in July 2006 with a run-off election occurring in October. Joseph Kabila was declared the victor and was sworn into office as the country’s first democratically-elected president in December 2006 and a new government led by veteran politician Antoine Gizenda was established in February 2007. However, the government is far from having gained control of the whole territory, especially in the east where fighting has intermittently continued between rebel forces and the Congolese national army, the FARDC.

Humanitarian Situation

The protracted war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last half century. More than 4 million, mostly children and civilians, have died for reasons associated with the conflict. Displacement steadily rose in the DRC from 1996 on, reaching its peak in 2003 with an estimated 3.4 million people forced from their homes. Today, an estimated 1.1 million Congolese remain displaced, including 400,000 refugees who sought safety in other countries.

While many Congolese were killed in conflict, a great majority died as a result of disease and starvation while seeking refuge from attack. With civilian homes, hospitals, schools and communities targeted by the armed militia groups and national forces, millions found themselves without even the most basic services, shelter, water or food. The demolition of infrastructure, displacement of rural populations, destruction of agricultural land, and burning of fields and food supplies resulted in pervasive malnutrition throughout the DRC. Two-thirds of the population was left vulnerable to food shortages in 2003, and 1.9 million children suffered from acute malnutrition by 2004. Due to persistent insecurity, the deficiency of infrastructure, geographic constraints, and limited operational capacity of relief organizations, humanitarian aid remains out of reach for many communities today.

Throughout the protracted war and persisting violence, all parties to the conflict – including members of the transitional government – have committed grave human rights violations with impunity. The armed groups have utilized systematic killings, looting, kidnapping, genital mutilation and rape as common elements of persecution. Today, gender-based violence remains a particularly severe threat to the vulnerable civilian population. More than 40,000 women have been raped in eastern Congo since 1998, and upwards of 70% of all women have been raped within particular internal displacement camps and communities according to UN surveys.

Furthermore, all parties to the conflict in the DRC have illegally recruited, abducted and used child soldiers. A war crime under international law, the armed factions have forcibly recruited between 20,000 and 40,000 children, including young girls, into armed combat, forced labor and sexual servitude. Female child soldiers are particularly vulnerable as they are frequently raped or forced to allow sexual abuse by superiors. Despite initial agreements to begin demobilizing children in 2000 and a number of public gestures of support, no parties to the conflict have made serious commitments to demobilizing children within their forces. The paucity of political will to ensure the protection of children and address these human rights violations has been evident. UN reports document active recruitment of children into conflict by insurgent groups throughout North and South Kivu in 2004, and that an estimated 25% of armed combatants in Ituri are children.

Throughout 2006 and 2007 active conflict reduced significantly, although in specific areas violence continued. Joint operations by MONUC and the FARDC against armed groups provoked the displacement of more than 500,000 people in the eastern DRC in 2007. The Kivu Conference on Peace, Stability and Development, which took place in January 2008, has led to some improvements in security and access for humanitarian organizations in eastern DRC, however ceasefire violations by various armed groups are ongoing and there are still new displacements taking place. Villagers continue to endure extortion, rape and violence from both the militias and government forces. Infrastructure is poor, and returned IDPs are often cut off from food aid and medical assistance. Malnutrition is common, particularly among children. Before conditions can improve, the ongoing violence and insecurity in eastern DRC will have to be addressed.

Updated May 2008