Why the Congo is in a Mess - Volume I - I have been compelled to write this feature as a result of an article featured in this paper entitled "Light in Congo's Darkness". The article was slightly economical with the truth about the real reasons why there is instability in the Congo. [AA Network - DRC Congo]

Rebel Leader Kidnaps 200 in DR Congo - The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have kidnapped more than 200 villagers, including 50 children, in Dakwa, a village in northeastern Congo, about 200km from the border with the Central African Republic. [AA Network - Uganda]

The Ntaganda Controversy - Bosco Ntaganda's days of freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, may be numbered if President Joseph Kabila responds to international pressure that the militia leader be arrested. [AA Network - DRC Congo]

Congolese Activists Oppose Plans for Ntaganda - They say militia chief should be sent to the Hague not integrated into the army. [AA Network - DRC Congo]

Top UN Humanitarian Official Condemns New 'Terror And Upheaval' - The top United Nations humanitarian official today condemned a resurgence of violence against civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), amid a serious of offensives against a Rwandan militia group. [AA Network - Rwanda]

UN Rights Chief Calls for Justice in East - Outbreaks of bloodshed will continue to occur in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where in the past few months escalating conflict has uprooted a quarter of a million people, unless impunity is ended for those guilty of the worst violations, the top United Nations human rights official said today in Geneva. [AA Network - DRC Congo]

State Forces Kill 500 Over Two Years, Says Rights Group - Security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed some 500 political opponents over the past two years, with the full knowledge of the highest echelons of power, according to Human Rights Watch. The Kinshasa government rejected the allegations. [AA Network - DRC Congo]

Angry Protesters Attack UN Post - Hundreds of Congolese civilians, enraged by violent incursions by Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) Ugandan rebels, attacked United Nations posts in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) yesterday, wounding two UN peacekeepers. [AA Network - DRC Congo]

Democratic Republic of Congo's five-year war officially ended in 2003, but the country is still regularly listed as the site of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Despite having their first elected president in over 40 years and living in a country which should be rich from its gold, diamonds and minerals, millions of Congo's people still suffer from a lethal combination of disease and hunger caused by ongoing conflict and displacement.

= 3.9 million dead since 1998 from war-related violence, hunger and disease
= Congo is the size of western Europe
= 40,000 women and girls have been raped

The country formerly known as Zaire now has a democratic government - led by President Joseph Kabila, a former guerrilla - but insecurity continues in the remote, resource-rich provinces near the eastern border. The world's largest peacekeeping mission - a U.N. force of 17,000 soldiers and police - struggles to prevent violence and protect the population of almost 60 million.