Democratic Republic of Congo

Civilians in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo remain victims of mass killings, severe torture and widespread rape at the hands of numerous armed groups operating in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Orientale Province.

In the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, civilians are targeted by the rebel Forces Democratique de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) as part of a strategy of retaliatory attacks. During these attacks, the FDLR has burned villages and has killed innocent residents. Human Rights Watch estimates that these attacks have killed more than 1,000 civilians since January 2009 and 5 millions civilians since 1996, more deaths than what had occurred in WWII.

The Congolese Army, known as FARDC, also has a history of targeting civilians, primarily as targets for looting and gender based violence in the two eastern provinces.

In Orientale province, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in massacres and attacks committed by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony since Christmas of 2008. The LRA was responsible for more deaths due to violence in two months than all other groups throughout 2008.

While the DR Congo features the world’s largest peacekeeping force, MONUC, the presence of these peacekeepers have yet to bring peace to an area that has been at war since 1996.