In the Democratic Republic of Congo, eight endless years of armed conflict have left a country bled dry and killed more than 5 millions people. In 2006, the DRC had finally embarked on a course of political renewal, which entailed the organization of the first democratic elections. This process, largely based on the impunity guaranteed to the primary actors of the conflict, soon represented a handicap to the country's reconstruction, aggravated by the failure to de-mobilize armed militias and by the creation of a new national army blending together formerly opposed armed groups. The situation was and remains as its bloodiest and most dire in Eastern Congo, in Ituri and the Kivu, regions of vast mineral wealth that border Uganda and Rwanda. It is here that armed conflict again broke out, in late August 2007, between army troops and men loyal to deposed general Laurent Nkunda. Attacks, murder and generalized rape targeting civilians, as well as the recruitment of child soldiers, have persisted here. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and have had to abandon their homes. One thousand die every day from direct and indirect consequences of the conflict, and the Jan. 2008 peace accords haven't changed a thing.

Cédric Gerbehaye