Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Main article: Africa

Hunger

Economy

National debt

2023: State debt - 15% of GDP

2017: State debt - 18% of GDP

GDP $478 per person

Minerals

Rwanda plunders DRC resources for US, EU interests

Armed groups associated with the military and political elites of neighboring countries, primarily Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, as well as the government of DR Congo itself, are actively fighting for control over local resources in 2022.

The CIG channel reminded that production is underway in DR Congo:

• 70% of the world's cobalt reserves.
• DRC is also the first in Africa (and the third in the world) largest copper producer,

• has the largest deposits of diamonds, gold and such elements as tin, coltan (tantalum), tungsten, which are sometimes referred to as "3T" (tin, tantalum, tungsten), large reserves of lithium.

"3T" - used in all consumer electronics, medical equipment, automotive, aerospace and many other industries.

Coltan is used to make batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.

Rare resources are also used in alternative power. Without them, it is impossible to imagine future technologies.

Despite the presence of so many useful ones, minerals the DRC is not engaged in their processing. Instead, an extensive network of intermediaries is engaged in the illegal export of Congolese valuable resources and their subsequent implementation in and Dubai. Hong Kong

International observers regularly note attempts by neighboring countries to destabilize the DRC in order to preserve illegal trafficking in minerals.

Illegal trade explains how, for example, Rwanda has become one of the world's largest exporters of rare minerals despite having few mines of its own.

President Tshisekedi's bet on economic diplomacy did not materialize, as did attempts to at least partially withdraw the mineral market from the "gray" zone.

In February 2024, Felix Tshisekedi criticized the recently signed agreement between Rwanda and the European Union on mining, especially the item concerning the mineral columbite-tantalite (coltan).

Tshisekedi claims that the Rwanda authorities are M23 plundering the DRC's mineral resources, exporting them and with this money "continue their ambitions in Congo."

80% of all explored coltan (columbite-tantalite) reserves are in Africa, mainly in the east of the DRC in the province of North Kivu. And it is in this province that the rebellion of M23 rebels, who have been actively attacking mining mines in the region, has not subsided for more than 10 years.

In the early 2000s, serious restrictions were imposed on the export of columbite-tantalite due to the wars in the east of the DRC and related crimes.

Authorities in Kinshasa often have problems meeting the ever-new requirements of importers, leaving resource exports limited.

Pro-American Rwanda, in turn, does not have such problems, wrote "Fisherman." Due to Tutsi rebels and Congolese speculators, Rwanda is one of the main exporters of columbite-tantalite, despite the lack of rich deposits of this mineral.

At the same time, there are only four coltan processing plants in the world, of which the two largest are located in Germany and the United States. Also, the offices of these companies are located in both DRC and Rwanda.

Since the 2000s, the world media has periodically raised the issue of the resource background of conflicts in the east of the DRC and the participation of Rwanda and its sponsored rebels in the role of a proxy for the United States.

And at the end of 2023, protest movements against the United States, Rwanda and their exploitation of Congolese resources began to gain momentum in the DRC.

The question may be: Why won't the US simply start buying coltan directly from Congo without intermediaries?

The answer is quite simple - Washington does not need the rich columbite-tantalite and other resources of the DRC to strengthen and potentially become one of the major regional players. Moreover, this player can begin to "download the rights" and sell coltan at exorbitant prices, and even to other importers.

And in a modern situation, the United States both buys mineral from the DRC and through Rwandan structures, and maintains a sufficient level of instability in the region so that the valuable resource can be traded cheaply.

In early May 2024, in DR Congo, M23 rebels occupied the city of Rubaya, a coltan mining center (columbite-tantalite).

This happened on the same day that President France Emmanuel Macron called on neighboring Rwanda to stop supporting the M23. Macron made the announcement after talks with DRC President Felix Tshisekedi in. Paris

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second coltan producer in the world. Most of this fossil comes from mines around Rubaya and the town of Masisi in North Kivu province in eastern DRC.

2023

American and Canadian companies selected for gas field development

The DR Congo government in January 2023 published the names of companies that were selected to develop three gas fields in Lake Kivu in the east of the country.

Of these, RED, a local affiliate of Symbion Power, and Winds Exploration and Production LLC are American companies, while Alfajiri Energy is Canadian. Already in 2023, they should begin to start developing deposits.

Canadians qualify for lithium exploration

In early January 2023, Canadian AJN Resources Inc. received a 75% stake from a Congolese company to explore for a lithium deposit in the city of Lubumbashi in southern DR Congo. Specialists have already begun to conduct reconnaissance. Lithium is used in batteries and batteries, nuclear power, nuclear engineering and many other industries.

2022

Among the top 10 leading countries in the production of critical raw materials

2 million people involved in small-scale mining

US sanctions against Belgian gold trader Alain Goetz

In March 2022, the United States imposed sanctions on Belgian gold trader Alain Goetz and his company African Gold Refinery Ltd., one of the largest metal processors on the continent, for allegedly contributing to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Goetz and Uganda-based AGR are key players in the illegal gold trade in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars a year and is the largest source of revenue for armed groups in the country, the U.S. Treasury said in a statement.

Goetz, AGR and eight other related companies will be blocked under the sanctions.

Record gold prices have led to explosive growth in African gold exports. Most of the gold goes to the UAE, where three of Goetz's sanctioned companies are based.

Transport

Through the efforts of the PRC, a direct trans-African railway connection was opened between the Indian and Atlantic oceans, passing through the DRC.

On July 30, 2019, the first train between Tanzania and Angola set off on a 4300 km journey.

Agriculture

2021: Share of farmland - 12%

Tourism

Alcohol market

Minimum age to purchase alcoholic beverages

R&D

2020: R&D expenses - $28 million

Democratic Republic of Congo IT Market

2022: More than 5 startups

Power

Electrification

2020: Energy consumption per capita

and

Real estate

2020:78% of urban population lives in slums

Consumption

2023: Fish consumption is higher than meat consumption

2019: Low rice consumption: 18.1 kg per person per year

Foreign trade

2023:62% of wheat supplies come from Russia and Ukraine

2022: China is the biggest export destination

Population

Main article: Population of Africa

Migration

2021: Net outflow over 4 years

Marriages

Allowed to have more than one spouse

Overweight

Mortality

Traffic safety

Education

2024: Russian IT platform becomes a base for digitalization of education in Congo

In early June 2024, it became known that the Russian IT platform developed in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug) became the basis for digitalization of the education sector in the Republic of Congo. Analogues of Russian services will appear in this Central African state. Read more here.

Percentage of people who can read

Health care

2020

Duration of guaranteed paid sick leave 6 months or more

Part of the population defecates on the street

2018-2020: How the Ebola epidemic became a political issue

In early March 2020, WHO announced that the last recovered patient was released at a ceremony in the medical center of Beni.

The disease has been raging in the eastern provinces of the country since July-August 2018. As of March 3, 2020, 3,433 cases were reported in the Congo (of which 3,310 were confirmed), 2,264 people died (66%). By the fall of 2019, the outbreak area was localized to several settlements in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.

This outbreak was the tenth and deadliest epidemic in Congo's history. The first epidemic of 1976 claimed the lives of 208 people (out of 318 cases), the second in scale took place in 1995 and claimed 254 lives (with 315 infected). The third major epidemic of 2007 killed 187 people (with a total of 264 infected).

Ebola is a disease of dirty hands, while far from the deadliest. Measles has killed many more people in the country. Curbing Ebola was a matter of political will. With due skill and desire to defeat it, it would not be difficult, as the Nigerian government has already done in 2014 in just three months. The epidemic was a political, not a medical, issue.

The fact is that the areas covered by the epidemic were the scene of intense rebel activity. Traditionally, the opposition population of eastern Congo was very distrustful of the government's actions and accused foreign doctors of deliberately spreading the disease, and the May-May rural militias and military-political opposition groups operating in the region blocked the events of the authorities and NGOs, attacked medical centers and the police guarding them.

Of course, fake news replicated on WhatsApp, as well as irresponsible statements by some local politicians of various levels, played a big role in the hysteria. So, back in September 2018, parliamentarian Crispin Mbindule Mitono openly stated that the government invented the disease in order to destroy the population of Beni. By the time of the December elections, Ebola had become a visor in the election campaigns of politicians and associated armed militias.

However, it should not be forgotten that the DRC military is not fluffy kittens. The harm from the presence of an uncontrolled, corrupt and ferocious soldier multiple times outweighed the danger of death from fever. So residents of the eastern provinces did not want to let the dubious state come to them and still do not want to. Rational choice, if you like. Albeit heavy.

In addition, the cities of Butembo and Beni were blocked by representatives of non-profit structures and government officials, raising reasonable questions from the distrustful population about the true purposes of their presence. Vanity Fair on expensive jeeps in the middle of slums is a blight, and residents quickly realized that it was about business and grants. No Ebola - no money, as they joked sadly in local chats and social networks. Worse, the metropolitan functionaries and foreigners who annoyed the poor citizens and villagers were scattered a lot with promises, but did not disdain extortion of money, it came to prevention or medicines.

A lot has been written about how residents warmly condemned the disrespectful, in their opinion, practices of handling bodies, as well as the separation of relatives of the sick. However, the Congolese are not dark idiots, and even the leaders of the May-May rebel detachments made contact with adequate representatives of medical structures. It's just that in a heated political climate, any careless movement could go sideways, and representatives of NGOs were clearly not ready for jewelry work.

2019

Ebola virus outbreak

The Ebola virus outbreak in the DRC has become the second largest in history, with more than 2,000 cases and nearly 1,400 deaths by mid-June 2019.

In recent weeks, the figures have accelerated growth mainly due to DRC rebel groups attacking humanitarian doctors and slowing down work to prevent the spread of the disease.

The World Health Organization has calculated losses from attacks by armed groups on doctors who are fighting Ebola in the DRC.

Over the past year, there have been 174 attacks. As a result, 5 people were killed and 51 were injured. For comparison: in Afghanistan there were 41 attacks, in Syria - 35.

Local aggressive residents either simply threaten and throw stones at health workers, or use weapons to attack medical centers and burn sewage treatment plants.

This happens from the fact that many simply do not believe in the existence of the virus and consider doctors of international organizations to be the main culprits of their troubles.

In July 2019, unidentified kidnapped people staged a pogrom and then set fire to a medical center in the eastern part of the DRC.

By August 2019, more than 200,000 people had been vaccinated against Ebola in the DRC.

For vaccination, the Merck vaccine was used, which, as the country's authorities hope, will help stop the second largest epidemic of this virus.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has pledged to fund the production of an experimental Ebola vaccine called V920. Another vaccine from Johnson and Johnson is available, but the authorities are afraid to create confusion among the already skeptical population.

"The only vaccine used in this epidemic is Merck," the government's Ebola committee said in a statement. In total, 1980 people have already died during the epidemic.

On November 26, 2019, militants from the Mai Mai rebel group attacked an Ebola treatment center in Biakato, Ituri province, and killed three doctors.

Measles epidemic

In June 2019, in addition to Ebola, a measles epidemic was declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The country's health ministry says 87,000 cases have been reported since the beginning of the year.

Measles has been found in 23 of DRC's 26 provinces, in both urban and rural areas.

Later, in August 2019, it was announced that the measles epidemic is the deadliest known.

Between January and early August 2019, more than 145,000 people were infected, and 2,758 cases died, according to Doctors Without Borders.

Despite the scale of the epidemic, the organization notes a lack of medical personnel and funding.

Since the beginning of the year, Doctors Without Borders has vaccinated 474,863 children and provided treatment to 27,439 patients.

By November 2019, more than 5,000 people have already died of measles in the DRC since January this year.

This measles outbreak has become the largest in the world and no less dangerous than Ebola. According to WHO, more than 250 thousand cases of infection were recorded in the DRC.

However, only in September 2019, a large-scale vaccination campaign was urgently launched. The epidemic has already spread "throughout the country," the most vulnerable are children and babies.

Maternity leave

in

Crime

Prisons

2024

More than 100 prisoners died while trying to escape from prison in Kinshasa

In the capital of DR Congo on September 2, 2024, several hundred prisoners of Makala prison tried to escape from prison without even carrying edged weapons.

The riot began in the courtroom and the judges were hit by the prisoners. After that, the protesters managed to set fire to the courtroom and the hangar warehouse near it, after which they went to the women's pavilion, where hundreds of women were raped. Then they locked themselves in the 11th pavilion, since at that time they were already cordoned off by the security forces.

As a result of the riot, more than a hundred prisoners died, and 59 were injured. The main cause of death was a stampede, and only 24 people died due to police fire.

The fact that prisoners were willing to escape at all costs, even without a clear plan or weapons, speaks to the harsh conditions in prisons.

Makala Colony has not been modernized since colonial times. It contains about 14,400 people, which is almost 10 times its design capacity. In addition, most of it is held only while awaiting their sentence.

Lifting the moratorium on the death penalty that has been in place since 2000

In March 2024, the DRC authorities lifted the moratorium on the death penalty, which had been in force since 2000.

A March 13 circular by Justice Minister Rose Mutombo said the death penalty was reintroduced to "rid the army of traitors and curb the resurgence of terrorism and banditry."

Now the death sentence can be imposed in cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, espionage, rebellion and criminal conspiracy.

2019: The minimum age for children to be jailed is 14

2018: Very low number of prisoners per 100,000 citizens

Terrorism

• Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF)

History

2023

Tshisekedi wins presidential election

On December 20, 2023, presidential and parliamentary elections were held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to the current president Felix Tshisekedi, 25 more opposition candidates took part in them. Despite the fact that the final results will be summed up only by December 31, it is already clear that the president is leading by a huge margin.

According to the interim results of the processing of 14% of the vote, Felix Tshisekedi already shows a huge gap from his competitors with 78.8% of the vote. He is followed with 17.3% by Moiz Katumbi, for whom four other candidates were called to vote, and Martin Fayulu with 4%. The rest of the candidates did not score and 1%.

This was facilitated by the disunity of the opposition, which could not agree on the nomination of a single candidate, as well as several populist steps against the UN, whose presence in the DRC has annoyed local residents for many years.

At the request of the president, peacekeepers from the East African Community were withdrawn from the territory of the DRC, and the UN mission (MONUSCO) began a gradual curtailment of its activities. This immediately aroused the approval of the population, which every now and then arranges riots near the UN bases.

Despite the relatively calm nature of the vote, protests and clashes between supporters of political parties and law enforcement officers took place every now and then in different parts of the Congo.

Major riots were also not avoided in places. Some of the polling stations were attacked by gang and terrorist groups.

In many settlements, especially in the province of North Kivu, where the rebels from the M23 group and radical Islamists are fighting, equipment began to fail, the delivery of election kits was delayed, and some people could not find their names in the registers, which is why the work of polling stations was extended for the second day.

At the same time, elections in cities and villages under the control of militants were completely canceled due to the "impossibility of organizing a safe electoral process."

M23 surrounded the towns of Sake and Goma

Since the fall of 2023, after the summer lull, M23 again launched an offensive on the positions of the DRC Armed Forces. The radicals have already surrounded Sake and Goma and are making attempts to suppress resistance in these cities. The beginning of the withdrawal of peacekeepers from the East African Community and the UN at the request of Felix Tshisekedi on the eve of the elections played into their hands.

Floods cause 227 deaths

In the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the provinces of Ituri and South Kivu, heavy rains in early May 2023 provoked the spill of several rivers and multiple collapses. At least 227 people were declared dead.

There are reports that floodwaters and mudslides destroyed all houses in two villages of Bushushu and Nyamukubi in South Kivu province. In Ituri province, flooding has also destroyed more than 1,000 shelters for people displaced by the war in the east of the country.

At the same time, similar natural disasters also occurred in neighboring countries: about 130 residents died in Rwanda, eight people in Uganda.

2022

Clashes with the M23 group in the east of the country

In October 2022, the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the support of UN peacekeepers, fought heavy battles with rebels from the M23 group. In particular, at least ten civilians died in one district of Rutshuru in North Kivu province.

According to local authorities, the militants attacked several villages and reached the strategic road N2: it connects the administrative center of the region with other cities in the east of the country and Uganda. The group managed to occupy several settlements, part of the route was blocked.

At the end of 2021, after years of inconclusive consultations and the refusal of the Congolese authorities to satisfy the demands of the rebels, the M23 resumed hostilities. The group again seized part of the territory in the province of North Kivu, including the large city of Bunagana on the border with Uganda.

The activation of M23 has led to the deterioration of the DRC's relations with Rwanda. The Congolese government and the UN, as well as the US, accuse Rwandan authorities of supporting the rebels. In Kigali, they deny attacks on themselves and argue that it is the leadership of the DRC that is responsible for escalating the conflict.

The Rwandan government has said many times that it does not support the M23 rebels. However, all the facts point to him. The main bases of the group are based on the DRC-Rwanda border. UN investigated several times where the rebels came from, and all traces led to Rwanda. And the Rwandan authorities themselves, where Tutsi have dominated since 1995, and their peacekeepers in the Congo do not at all fight militants from a related tribe.

The reason for this policy is that the DRC still harbors Hutu radicals from the mid-1990s and their allies, whom the Rwandan authorities consider terrorists and demand they be extradited. In this case, the support for M23 carries not so much a desire to "help relatives" as a way of "trade" with the Congolese authorities.

At the end of October 2022, the positions of the parties are diametrically opposite. The rebels are M23 seeking high-profile military success in order to improve the future negotiating position and obtain political concessions from the government. The DRC authorities do not want to make concessions and are transferring reinforcements to the combat area.

All this leads to the fact that in the east of the Congo one should expect a new round of interethnic violence and an increase in civilian casualties, the Rybar telegram channel noted.

Against this background, calls from local residents for the introduction of Russian peacekeepers or PMCs are increasingly heard: for local people, events in the Central African Republic, where the Russians were able to stop the war, became a huge indicator.

Pogroms of a UN mission illegally supplying weapons to one of the parties to the conflict

In July 2022, mass protests and pogroms broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo against the UN peacekeeping mission in the country.

The formal reason was the leak of the UN arming of local youth. The fact that peacekeepers not only fail to cope with their mission, but also fuel the conflict in the east of the country, caused large-scale actions of discontent and protests.

In two days, at least 15 people died, 50 people were injured. Among the killed are three UN peacekeepers (the murder of two Hindus has been reliably confirmed). Rebels have seized Goma airport on the Rwandan border, with riots raging in Butembo. Calls for lynching of UN staff are posted on social media (literally "Look for them in all areas of the city").

Against this background, the people are increasingly hearing a request to enter the third force - and we are talking, first of all, about Russia. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, since 1997, in fact, the war continues. The request "Putin, come and restore order" is increasingly heard on the streets.

Joining the East African Community

In spring 2022, DRC leader Felix Tshisekedi announced his accession to the East African Community.

Court orders Uganda to pay DRC $325m for war crimes during Second Congolese War

In early 2022, the International Court of Justice [1] ordered Uganda to pay the DRC $325 million in compensation for war crimes committed during the Second Congolese War of 1998-2002.

2020

Arrested and detained in a psychiatric hospital, Prophet Ne Muanda Nsemi, who advocated the revival of the state of the Bakongo people

In DR Congo, after bloody skirmishes with police, the prophet Ne Muanda Nsemi, the leader of an influential nationalist movement advocating the revival of the ancient kingdom of Congo, was arrested and detained in a psychiatric hospital.

Bakongo is a people inhabiting the lower Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the border regions of Angola and the People's Republic of the Congo. The total number is more than 10 million people.

The Bakongo people were unlucky with their own state. Therefore, the bakongo are very concerned about their past - they are sure that something is definitely wrong with their history. But they believe that not everything is lost - history can and should be rewritten, "corrected" and reversed. For local intellectuals, the Zangaro Today telegram channel wrote, the revival of the ancient kingdom of Kakongo (XVI-XIX centuries) was always preferable to modern political nations, offering them Zaire identity, "Angolan" or - worse - poorly understood Marxism-Leninism.

It is not surprising that the social landscape of the bakongo homeland, torn apart by the former colonial possessions of Belgium, France and Portugal, gave rise to a lot of messianic liberation movements. In terms of the number of prophets - Banguz - this agrarian region, not spoiled by infrastructure projects and the attention of the central authorities, is second only to Old Testament Israel.

The tradition came from the prophetess Kimpa Vita, obsessed with the spirit of St. Anthony of Padua and announced the African origin of Jesus, the Holy Family and the Apostles. And although Kimpa Vita ended her life at the stake in 1706 as a heretic, and her successor Simon Kimbangu - in a Belgian prison in 1951, the galaxy of bakongo prophets carry numbers, and the vacant places in the spiritual vacuum were soon occupied by other banguza - Simon Mpandi, Andre Matsua, Mabwaka, Simau Toku, Tata Wonda.

The last "prophet of his fatherland" - Not Muande Nsemi (in the world of Zakariy Badiengil) - was a little more fortunate. In 2006 and 2011. the prophet was even elected to the Congolese parliament - until he finally quarreled with the authorities in 2017.

Founded by him back in 1986, the Bundu Dia Congo ("Union of the People of Congo," BDK) was the last and most radical in a series of religious and political movements, eager for the revival of the kingdom of Congo and the Bakongo people, as well as a comprehensive struggle with the "heritage of the white man," primarily with Christianity, especially in his Catholic exile.

His sect has created branches in DR Congo and abroad, cultivates martial arts, has combat units and training camps. The BDK's repertoire includes its own rituals, outfits, gestures, religion and cosmogony, its own language and habits, many of which are brought to the peak by the colonial, according to sectarians, household orders of the Congolese.

In fact, the sect's repertoire is an exotic mixture of New Age, Abrahamic and Neopagan cults, as well as ancient Egyptian aesthetics. So, according to some publications of the BDK, even in prehistoric times, space creatures from the planet Kakongo (in the Sirius system) landed on the ground in the Ethiopian plateau. The aliens, led by the archangel Akongo, of course, spoke Kikongo and created a great and mighty "homeland of elephants," in which, however, after some time everything went wrong, culture and language were forgotten, and their country was divided by whites and Rwandans.

But sectarians do not lose heart - many believe in the arrival of manicongo from space (the historical title of the ruler of the kingdom of Congo in the XIII-XVIII centuries) and the imminent onset of the "golden age." To approach it, they cultivate all "spiritual and moral education" - they start polygamy and drive women back to kitchens, abandon French or lingal (the main languages ​ ​ of the capital of Kinshasa), and learn to own weapons.

The defeat of the Congo Development Cooperative by government forces

In the east of DR Congo, in April 2020, fierce battles unfold between government forces and a mysterious armed sect - the Congo Development Cooperative, which controls 18 villages in Ituri province, in the leadership of Valendu Watsi. The confrontation that broke out at the end of 2017 claimed the lives of over 300 people and led to the exodus of 300 thousand civilians.

As is often the case, fighting in the geographic center of Africa - Ituri province - was preceded by ideas. Hema - tall and well-built pastoralists with "almost European" features - Belgian colonialists with the light hand of the traveler Henry Morton Stanley dubbed "noble descendants of the Semites," while their neighbors - farmers of Ngiti (subethnos Lendu) - were in the position of "wicked," rioters and savages. Stanley's bestseller did not go unnoticed and became a real guide to action. To this day, the educated Lendu reasonably consider Stanley's essays "an alphabet of racial superiority" in the hands of the Hema who conquered them back in the 18th century - the favorites of the Belgians and who replaced them after independence, the tyrant Mobutu Sese Seko.

But the centuries-old grievances against Hema, multiplied by the gold rush and land famine, made themselves felt only at the end of the twentieth century - against the background of the widespread erosion of "mobutism" and the slow collapse of the state.

Back in 1978, a strange but exceptionally successful agro-industrial enterprise appeared in the leadership of Valendu Bindi - the Cooperative for the Economic Development of the Congo (Coopérative de développement économique du Congo, CODECO). It was led by an influential group of young reformers among the Ngiti, led by rural leader Bernard Cacado Tsubina, who declared "revival and support for agriculture" as their goals. Gradually, the activities of CODECO covered the entire territory of Djugu, and the cooperative became the main supplier of food and charcoal for the regional center - the city of Bunia.

The ambitions of Kakado - a skilled manipulator, sorcerer and prophet - were only growing. The activities of the enterprise quickly went beyond the actual agricultural activities. Representatives of Kakado appeared in all the settlements of Djugu, and the exalted prophet began to distribute instructions to the surrounding farmers about favorable days for planting crops. Soon the company became reasonably suspected of mysticism. Among other things, they were accused of producing dava - and still popular among rural militias "May-May" magic drugs, allegedly giving invulnerability from bullets.

As Mobutu's regime decayed, Zaire slowly descended into chaos, in impassable virgin forests, the septuagenarian Bernard Kakado began to gather armed supporters and gradually became the spiritual leader and healer of the local Lendu rebel coalition - the Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front. The myth of the ominous "Tutsi empire," intending to absorb Congo in collaboration with Uganda, Rwanda and their henchmen, the Hema people, has taken shape in his imagination. So CODECO degenerated into an eschatological sect of ethno-extremists, which took part in the fierce interethnic massacre between Hema and Lendu - one of the fronts of the Second Congolese War of 1998-2003.

Despite the fact that Kakado was arrested and ended his days in prison in 2011, CODECO went into the shadows and retained religious and political structures. And at the end of 2017, the sect went on a full-blooded offensive, forcing it to talk about real genocide. The "Cooperative" began to recruit dysfunctional youth into its ranks, undergoing initiation rites and various esoteric ceremonies.

Narcotic teenagers received simple weapons - bows, machetes - and equally simple orders - to attack hema villages, plunder weapons arsenals and leave no traces after their attacks. Only in October 2019, the Storm Ituri, the general offensive of the Congolese troops, hit the forest bases of CODECO, forcing devastated villages and burned houses on its way.

Some of the groups from the cooperative agreed to disarmament and a ceasefire. The unit was recruited by the ADF. Some militants broke away and created their factions (although they retained the common name KODECO). And part was simply eliminated.

As of February 2024, the group, as a result of perturbations and actions by the army and the ADF (which are fighting over the territory with KODECO), has significantly reduced its activity.

Death of military intelligence chief Kahimbi accused of plotting against President Tshisekedi

Military intelligence chief Dalfin Kahimbi was found dead at his home in Kinshasa on the evening of February 28, 2020. He was due to appear in a DRC court on charges of conspiracy against President Felix Tshisekedi.

The cause of death is being established. Newspapers report suicide, the Kahimbi family reports a heart attack. The army team said that Kahimbi's accusations of conspiracy are baseless and are designed to tarnish the reputation of an outstanding military leader.

Dalfin Kahimbi was a close associate of former Congo President Joseph Kabila and one of the country's most powerful people.

He is credited with victories in operations against rebels in the east of the DRC. He was also included in the EU sanctions list for human rights violations.

2019

8 killed by ADF militants near the city of Beni

At the end of November 2019, protesters in Beni, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, set fire to the city hall to protest the unpunished killing of civilians by militants, Radio Okapi reported. Eight people were killed there on Sunday night.

An attack on one of the urban areas was carried out by militants of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Protesters folded the bodies of the dead in front of the city council, the building was set on fire.

In previous days, protesters clashed with law enforcement forces in Beni. Several people were killed and wounded.

50 people died in a train crash

DRC Humanitarian Affairs Minister Steve Mbikai said the tragedy took place in Mayibaridi town, Tanganyika province, at around 3am on September 12, 2019.

The disaster killed 50 people.

130 armed groups in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces

Since the mid-1990s, the DRC has suffered from instability and internal conflicts. Even though the Second Congolese War ended in 2003, clashes continued in the eastern parts of the country, where various rebel groups remain active.

More than 130 armed groups are based in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, making the region one of the most dangerous places in the world, according to a joint report by Human Rights Watch and a Congo research group from New York University.

President Felix Tshisekedi, during his first tour of the provinces in April 2019, pledged to hold people supporting armed groups accountable and increase support for military operations in the area. However, no legal proceedings followed.

Armed groups in the DRC between June 2017 and July 2019 killed nearly 1,900 civilians and kidnapped more than 3,300 people in the country's eastern provinces.

Parents sent children to camp and they were sold to Belgium for adoption

In August 2019, a Belgian court is investigating the case of a "shelter" that organized abductions and trafficking of children from the DRC. Children were brought to Belgium for adoption under the guise of orphans.

Parents sent their children to Kinshasa to an alleged holiday camp. But after the "holidays" they did not return. Belgian journalists Kurt Werthelaers and Benoit de Frein revealed the scheme with a fictitious adoption. Thanks to DNA tests, it turned out that the biological parents of many children adopted in Belgium are still alive.

Four Belgian families were affected by the story in the beginning. In August 2019, the adoptive parents of 15 more adopted children are waiting for the results of DNA tests. People who organized such "camps" and an "orphanage" have been charged in both Belgium and the DRC.

Terrorist attack with a series of explosions in the Beni area

In the DRC, on June 27, 2019, a series of explosions occurred near the village of Kasanga in the area of ​ ​ the city of Beni.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Several Congolese soldiers are killed and wounded.

Conflict between two tribes in DRC ends with 160 victims

In June 2019, a renewed struggle between the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups destroyed about 40 villages in the northeastern province of Ituri. Moreover, about 100 thousand people were forced to leave their homes.

The cause of the new outbreak of violence is not yet clear, but it occurred in the region (Ituri province, DRC), where tens of thousands of people died in clashes between the same groups between 1999 and 2007.

Some media outlets give other information on the victims of 50 to 70 people.

2013: M23 fails as militants take refuge in Rwanda and Uganda

In 2013, the Tutsi group M23 officially dissolved itself after a series of military defeats, although in fact the rebels simply left for neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. Subsequent negotiations with the government have not yielded results.

2012: Tootsie create 'March 23 Movements (M23)' and launch new uprising

A few years after the 2009 peace agreements, some Tutsis formed the "March 23 movement" or M23 (by the date of the signing of the peace negotiations) and reiterated that they were treated badly, repressed against them, and demanded the creation of their political representation in the central authorities from the North Kivu region, where the largest concentration of Tutsis lived.

After negotiations collapsed in 2012, the militants launched a full-scale uprising.

In 2012, M23 rebels temporarily seized Goma, the administrative center of North Kivu province, which was later recaptured in a joint operation by the national armed forces and UN peacekeepers.

2009: Tutsi peace agreements with the Government

Five years after the outbreak of the conflict, peace agreements were signed on March 23, 2009. Tutsi rebels were legalized and joined the army.

2004: Tutsi uprising in the east of the country. The birth of the Tutsi military group

In 2004, Tutsis living in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo stated that the country's authorities whitewashed and condoned Hutu militants who fled Rwanda, and were also preparing "once again" to organize genocide. So Tutsi militants organized a large-scale uprising that spread to the entire eastern border of the DRC.

At this time, the core of the Tutsi group appeared in the region, which in the future will become known as M23.

2000: Amnesty International demonises DRC government

In 2000, in its report on the situation in the country, Amnesty International spoke about the repression that the official government allegedly commits. The authorities of DR Congo denied all the accusations, indicating that it is precisely such an erroneous representation of the West that is broadcast to all world media, but it has little in common with the real situation.

In particular, the report described repressions against opposition politicians, journalists, human rights activists and trade unionists. However, most violations occurred away from areas of conflict. In particular, the document generally did not take into account the nature of the war in the Congo, for which the responsibility is assigned to the illegal invasion of the country by Rwanda and Uganda. However, these factors were not taken into account at Amnesty International.

The government also pointed out that the organization ignores the principle that governments have the right to take increased security measures. In addition, human rights defenders Amnesty International did not document human rights violations in areas that were occupied by rebels - that is, in almost a third of the country.

1999: Launch of a UN mission to monitor the peace process following the conclusion of the Second Congolese War

The permanent presence of UN representatives in the DRC began in 1999 to monitor the peace process after the conclusion of the Second Congolese War. The format of the mission has changed several times due to the emergence of new conflicts, the last of which, in the northeast, continues in 2023.

The failure of the military contingent in opposing individual rebel groups in the country results in the creation in 2012 in the eastern part of the DRC of a large military formation "M23" ("March 23 Movement"), consisting mainly of ethnic Tutsis.

After years of unsuccessful negotiations with the DRC government, the rebels resume fighting in late 2021.

Despite the talks in November 2022, the situation in the eastern regions of the country continues to deteriorate. By the end of 2022, during military offensives, more than 180 thousand people became refugees.

1995: Ugandan ADF Muslim rebels launch action in DRC

Main article: Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF)

The original goal of the ADF was to overthrow the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and create an Islamic fundamentalist regime in its place.

Ugandan Muslim rebels have been present in the DRC since 1995. They are accused of killing hundreds of civilians in the Beni region between October 2014 and November 2019.

1994: Flow from Rwanda to DRC Hutus implicated in Tutsi genocide

After the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda and the ensuing Tutsi-Hutu civil war, Tutsi representatives came to power. Fearing revenge, a flood of Hutu refugees poured into DR Congo (at that time Zaire), many of whom were just involved in the genocide.

The new Rwandan authorities were not satisfied that the Kinshasa government took the organizers of the large-scale repression with open hands under its protection. So the interethnic conflict became one of the reasons for the two Congolese wars, which ended in 2003.

1976: Ebola virus outbreak

1971: Renaming the country Zaire

In 1971, the country was renamed Zaire - the Portuguese-distorted name of the largest local river in the Congo.

1965: Mabutu becomes head of state in putsch

Finally coming to power, he established a one-party authoritarian regime and proclaimed a course towards "authenticity," expressed in the rejection of European names, place names, appeals and costumes.

The dictator of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa for Banga (president of the country from 1965 to 1997) was involved in the murder of Patrice Lumumba. Having come to power in 1965 as a result of the coup, he proclaimed a course towards distinctive Zairian nationalism, nationalized small and medium-sized businesses.

He is also known for inventing and popularizing abacost, a suit that Zaire civil servants were required to wear instead of European clothes.

In the photo, Mobutu is in abacosta.]]

1960: Gaining independence from Belgium. Murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba

On June 30, 1960, the country declared independence. Immediately after that, a civil war began in it, caused by the desire of the copper-rich Katanga province (later renamed Shabu) to separate from the new state. The conflict was marked by irreconcilable contradictions between Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and President Joseph Kasavubu.

On September 14, 1960, Mobutu, who already had the rank of colonel and was appointed chief of the general staff by the prime minister, carried out a military coup with the support of the United States. On November 27, Lumumba was arrested by troops loyal to the colonel and killed.

In 1961, Mobutu transferred power to civilians, after which he actively participated in the suppression of uprisings in the south, east and center of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

1930

1914

1908: Colony formation Belgian Congo

Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, Netherlands. Belgisch-Kongo) is a colony of Belgium that existed in the territory of the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo after King Leopold II of Belgium sold the Independent State of the Congo to the Belgian state on November 15, 1908, and before the declaration of independence of the Congo on June 30, 1960.

In 1908, the Belgian Chamber of Deputies adopted the will of King Leopold II to officially seize the territory of the Congo. The Great Powers recognized annexation unquestioningly.

A year later, the king of Belgium, remembered by the local peoples as a tyrant, slave owner and exploiter, died.

Belgium tried to erase the name of Leopold III from people's memory. But not all Congolese forgot the labor camps, severed brushes, beatings and murders of the late 19 century, when Belgium decided to bite off a piece of African pie.

1885: Personal possession of the bloody King Leopold II of Belgium

Now few people remember the Belgian king Leopold II. Meanwhile, this man deserves to take one of the leading places in the pantheon of the bloodiest rulers of the twentieth century. Having registered in his personal property the Congo Free State created on his initiative, he organized a grandiose factory from the controlled territory to pump its wealth into his own pocket.

According to modern historians, over the twenty years of the existence of this state, Leopold earned up to one and a half billion euros in modern money. The number of lives that the Congolese have put in for this is estimated between one million and fifteen million.

Locals who failed to carry out the plan to collect rubber were either simply killed or maimed. It was a common practice to take children hostage, then cutting off their hands and feet for poor work. These were not individual excesses, but a system: the taskmaster was required to either execute the plan, or present the required number of severed limbs as justification for its failure to fulfill. Otherwise, the taskmaster himself was killed.

Perversions of all kinds were only encouraged, since it was believed that the more the controlled population fears you, the better it works: therefore, it was not uncommon for children to be forced to kill their parents, or vice versa.

This izuver state was created under the plausible pretext of combating the slave trade, modernizing and educating local residents. At least this position was presented in the Belgian press. Only near the end of the king's life, this striking discrepancy of high goals with low-lying methods allowed the "opposition" public to organize a large-scale criticism of Leopold and his methods of management. As a result, he only had to sell Belgium the right to own the state.

In February 2019, the UN called on Belgium to apologize for crimes against the Democratic Republic of the Congo during colonialism.

Culture

Sport

2022: The most popular sport is football

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Social programs

Since 2012, the Bon Pasteur program of the International Foundation for the Good Shepherd has been helping local communities: it protects against gender-based violence, fights forced child labor, the lack of the necessary social infrastructure, and so on.

National Parks

Virunga National Park

The famous conservationist, animalist and biologist Karl Aikley traveled to five African expeditions during his life from 1896 to 1926.

Before his eyes, the fauna of the continent began to deteriorate sharply, primarily due to the consequences of colonization by European powers. Aikley managed to convince King Albert I of Belgium to create conservation zones in the territory under his control in Central Africa.

In 1925, the first national park on the continent appeared in the Virunga Mountains, named after the king - Parc National Albert. Currently, this is Virunga National Park, which is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

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