s porous border with Rwanda, which was accused of sending fighters and weapons to M23 rebels. The M23 was defeated by the Congolese army backed by a UN intervention brigade last month. But the UN has said it will turn its attention to other armed groups in the region. Among them are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), led by extremist Hutus from Rwanda who took part in that country...
s long-running war, IUCN says The blue-tongued forest giraffe, the national symbol of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is on the brink of extinction, according to the latest update to the red list of threatened species. The stripy-legged creature , which appears on Congolese banknotes and is actually a species of okapi, has become another victim of the DRC's long-running war. But surveys reveal...
s Trust Fund for Victims One woman says she became stronger and returned to work for the sake of her children; another started to see herself as "equal to everyone else again". Both are survivors of sexual violence during conflict and are describing how they have benefited from rehabilitation programmes in northern Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The interventions, carried...
s brutal 20-month uprising in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has been hailed as a rare glimmer of hope in a mineral-rich region plagued by seemingly perpetual war, costing millions of lives. Makenga, 39, and his men were disarmed and being registered by the Ugandan military in Mgahinga, a forested national park near the Congolese border, an unnamed Ugandan military official told Associated...
s capture of their two remaining strongholds in the villages of Tshanzu and Runyoni before dawn. Hopes are rising that disarmament can be sustained in the region, which has been devastated by nearly two decades of violence. DRC languishes at the foot of the UN's human development index , ranking 186th of 187 countries. Malnutrition is widespread , more than 70% of children are anaemic (pdf) and conflict-related...