Inside Congo’s killing fields, sickly and exploited artisanal miners slave away for world’s indifferent tech economies
Josaphat Musamba, a Congolese researcher and PhD student at Ghent University in Belgium, said suppressing the militia would be a tall order for the DRC’s military, which is no longer present in large swathes of M23-controlled territory.
Congo and Rwanda-backed rebels agree to end decades-long conflict in eastern Congo via declaration of principles
Backed by neighbouring Rwanda, the M23 is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups fighting for control in Congo’s mineral-rich east. With seven million people displaced in Congo, the UN has called the conflict in eastern Congo “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth.”
At 92 and in power for 43 years, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya says his best years are ahead as he seeks eighth term
In a region threatened with shrinking democratic space, several other African countries also have presidents accused of using state mechanisms to prolong their stay in power. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni recently sought nomination for a seventh term, a move that would bring him closer to five decades in power in the East African country.
New confidential report by UN experts accuses Rwanda of commanding and controlling M23 rebels
Rwanda has long denied helping M23 and says its forces are acting in self-defence against Congo’s army and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
‘We’re getting for US a lot of mineral rights from the Congo’, Trump makes American interests clear in DRC, Rwanda peace deal
Rwanda has sent at least 7,000 soldiers over the border, according to analysts and diplomats, in support of the M23 rebels, who seized eastern Congo’s two largest cities and lucrative mining areas in a lightning advance earlier this year.
