Africa: DR Congo

In late mid-2006, the Democratic Republic of Congo – one of Africa’s largest and poorest nations – held the country’s first multiparty elections in over 40 years. With a pricetag of roughly US $460 million, largely funded by the international community, the elections promise to change the political landscape of a country long mired by a legacy of crooked politicians plundering government institutions and natural resources through corruption and the barrel of a gun.

But active fighting continues between the Congolese army and scattered militias in the country’s east, with civilians caught in the middle. At 4 million, the death toll in the Congo is the worst of any war since World War II, even though the war in the Congo supposedly ended with a peace agreement in 2002.

Today as the ill-equipped and poorly trained Congolese army tries to stamp out the last of the militia it has taken a reputation as being just as murderous and uncontrollable.