s army and M23 rebels, goes ahead in Goma The city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been the scene of armed conflict between rebel and government forces for nearly two decades. But this weekend Goma put on a different face as crowds gathered at College Mwanga, close to the Virunga market, to celebrate a music festival with the optimistic slogan "playing for change, singing for peace"....
Supplies of cobalt, tin and gold will follow tantalum in being sourced only from conflict-free smelters Alex Hern ...
s east, the UN has warned. A violent rebellion has destroyed an estimated 600 homes in the past three months and displaced 400,000 people in Katanga, the country's wealthiest province. Martin Kobler , head of the UN mission in the DRC, known as Monusco, admitted that Katanga had been ignored in recent months as troops stepped up their campaign against M23 rebels in the eastern provinces of North and...
s been much criticism of the way the west covers the continent, but are African journalists doing a better job? The Kenyan writer and graduate student at Harvard Law School Nanjala Nyabola recently caused a bit of a stir with her Al Jazeera article asking "Why Do Western Media Get Africa Wrong?" Reading through the piece, which was both interesting and informative, I couldn't help but wonder: Just...
Intelligence-gathering aircraft monitoring armed groups in eastern region of DR Congo damaged in faulty landing at Goma A United Nations surveillance drone has been damaged after sliding off the runway while trying to land in the eastern Congo city of Goma, the UN special representative for the country said. The drone, part of a programme monitoring armed groups in the conflict-ridden eastern region...
m terrified of walking along roads because I don't want to be raped for the third time," she told World Vision, which has interviewed more than 100 children in camps and communities in North and South Kivu. These provinces have borne the brunt of the violence that has killed and displaced millions of people for more than 20 years in the DRC. More than a third of respondents told the charity they were...
We find out how children's lives have been affected by conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Simon Rawles Mustafa Khalili ...
Sapeurs' Guinness has turned to a Congolese fashion cult, the Sapeurs , to star in its latest TV campaign. The TV ad campaign features the Sapeurs – men who make the transformation from farmers, taxi drivers and labourers to cigar-wielding gentlemen dressed to the nines in bowler hats and tailored suits – of the Republic of the Congo capital Brazzaville coming together after a day's work. "Through...
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s difficulties The cover of Michael Deibert's examination of Congo bears a striking image of a young woman in flip-flops playing the cello in a bleak, grubby yard surrounded by a bleak, grubby city. She focuses on the notes on a sheet music stand, seemingly oblivious to the potholes and grime and rain-bellied clouds overhead. It is an apt illustration for a book subtitled " Between Hope and Despair...
s biggest and unwieldiest state highlighted the fragility of President Joseph Kabila's central government. The assailants declared themselves loyal to a Christian evangelical prophet. Lambert Mende, a government spokesman, said about 40 people were killed in the exchange of fire on Monday morning, including 16 at the military base, 16 at the airport and eight at the TV station. Six other people were...
s border with Rwanda. Chuma left home young to study at the Royal Cadet School in Brussels, following which he graduated from the Belgian Royal Military Academy . He joined the Zairean army as a young tank regiment officer in the mid-1970s, part of a new generation of high-flyers trained in military schools in Belgium, France, Israel and the United States. He soon learned that the different countries...
s rise . More Africans were seduced by them in 2013 than ever before. But the mall was also then the logical target for terrorists seeking maximum impact on their perceived enemies and the world beyond. In September al-Shabaab , an Islamist militant group from Somalia, brought mayhem to the upmarket Westgate shopping centre – one of the temples of Africa's 21st-century consumer capitalism – in neighbouring...
s Congo sanctions committee, which was seen by Reuters on Monday. "The group has received credible information that sanctioned M23 leaders are moving freely in Uganda and that M23 has continued to recruit in Rwanda," it said. The independent panel also accused armed groups and the Congolese army of human rights abuses – including use of child soldiers, summary executions and sexual violence – and profiting...
s 1959, just a year before the country gains its independence. The Poisonwood Bible spans 30 years in the life of the family as it slowly implodes – under pressures brought on by the intransigent father and political and social upheaval in the country – and then rebuilds itself. Congo permeates the story, as it grapples with its fledgling independence and a descent into violence exacerbated by the...
s oldest national park and a world heritage site. But the park is at risk of becoming Africa...
s most popular entertainers – his work had an appeal that crossed ethnic, linguistic and national barriers. He composed thousands of songs and from the late 1950s his "internationalised" form of Congolese rumba, known as soukous, brought him great fame and fortune. He came to prominence in the band African Jazz, formed in 1953 in what is now Kinshasa (then Léopoldville), capital of the Democratic Republic...
s people Earlier this year, I was on stage at London's Young Vic playing Patrice Lumumba – a remarkable man who made a remarkable journey from being a beer salesman to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's first prime minister. The play was called A Season in the Congo , and it focused on the years in which the country won its independence from Belgium. Lumumba was elected to office in June 1960;...
This short film written and directed by Chiwetel Ejiofor is a postcolonial parable about the west's hunger for African mineral wealth ...
supply chains may force many to leave the troubled DRC, but change will only happen if they stay With the defeat of the M23 rebel s in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), this vast blighted country is poised for a brighter future. But a new US law designed to help the region escape its poverty looks set to do just the opposite. The law is meant to end the trade in minerals produced in areas...