Background

Since its independence from Belgium in 1960, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the Congo) formerly known as Zaire, has been a hotbed of violence and conflict. Straddling the equator, the central African country has a tropical and humid climate. The Congo is surrounded by the countries of Angola, Zambia, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

The Congo’s population, which is 56 million, comprises more than 200 ethnic groups. An estimated 65 percent of the population can read and write in French, the official language. The proportion of people who have entered primary school has decreased steadily since the wars began in 1993.

Rich mineral deposits, competing tribal groups, a brutal colonial legacy and vast stretches of forest have always made the nation ripe for foreign intervention and political chaos. The eastern Congo, where uncertain borders are remote from the capital of Kinshasa, has especially served as a haven and a battleground for Congolese insurgents and armed groups spilling over from wars in neighboring countries. The end of the Rwandan genocide sent thousands of Hutu militiamen, the interahamwe, responsible for the mass murder of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, fleeing to the Congolese forests, where they were pursued by the new Tutsi-dominated Rwandan army.

Their struggle became entangled with a long-running insurgency against the crumbling Mobutu regime and cross-border tensions with other nations, helping to fuel the First and Second Congo Wars. The latter, lasting from 1998 to 2003, involved six African nations and some 20 armed groups and led to the death of nearly 4 million people, earning it the epithet “Africa’s First World War.” Child soldiers, drugs, superstition and a virulent terrorizing of women characterized the fighting.

Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/456900/456977/html/nn3page1...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3075537.stm.