Second Congo War

Fought mainly on the soil of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between August 1998 and July 2003, the Second Congo War drew in nine African states and some 25 armed groups, which is why it is sometimes called "Africa's World War". It began when President Laurent-Désiré Kabila broke with the Rwandan and Ugandan governments that had helped bring him to power, and it ended in military stalemate and a negotiated power-sharing government. A widely cited 2008 survey estimated that the war and its aftermath caused about 5.4 million deaths, mostly from disease and hunger, although that figure has been disputed.

Tensions in the eastern Kivu provinces over the status and land rights of Kinyarwanda-speaking communities were inflamed by the arrival of about 1.5 million Hutu refugees after the Rwandan genocide of 1994, among them armed militias responsible for the killings. In 1996 Rwanda and its allies backed a rebellion that grew into the First Congo War. By May 1997 Kabila's forces had overthrown Mobutu Sese Seko, and the country, then called Zaire, was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kabila's alliance with his former backers soon soured. Rwandan troops remained in the east, anti-Tutsi feeling grew, and rumours spread of a coup plot. On 27 July 1998 Kabila ordered all Rwandan troops out of the country. On 2 August Banyamulenge Tutsi soldiers rebelled, with Rwandan and Ugandan support. A daring airborne attempt by Rwandan forces and rebel defectors to seize Kinshasa that month was halted when Zimbabwe and Angola sent troops to save Kabila; Namibia and Chad also came to his aid.

Rwanda and the rebel RCD then overran North and South Kivu, took Kisangani on 23 August 1998 and pushed into the centre and south. Uganda occupied much of the north, backing a second rebel group, the MLC. After an offensive toward the diamond city of Mbuji-Mayi in 1999, the Lusaka ceasefire of July and August 1999 largely froze the front lines along a 2,400-kilometre arc from near Mbandaka to northern Katanga. Fighting nonetheless went on, with militias such as the Interahamwe and Mai-Mai active behind the lines and ethnic violence widespread. A United Nations panel charged that Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe were plundering the Congo's diamonds, coltan, gold and other minerals.

Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated in Kinshasa on 16 January 2001, apparently by one of his own bodyguards, a former child soldier; claims of foreign involvement have never been proven. Parliament installed his son Joseph Kabila, who proved more willing to negotiate. Under South African mediation, the Sun City Agreement of April 2002 set out a framework for a unified government, the Pretoria Accord of 30 July 2002 led Rwanda to withdraw some 20,000 troops in exchange for action against Hutu militias, and a September agreement with Uganda provided for its withdrawal. In December 2002 the Congolese parties signed the Global and All-Inclusive Agreement.

A transitional government took office on 18 July 2003, the date usually taken as the end of the war, uniting government and former rebels in a multi-party administration under Joseph Kabila. United Nations peacekeepers of the MONUC mission were deployed. Violence nonetheless continued in the east, in the Ituri and Kivu conflicts and with the Lord's Resistance Army.

The International Rescue Committee's estimate of 5.4 million excess deaths between 1998 and 2008 would make the war and its aftermath the deadliest conflict since the Second World War. Researchers at Simon Fraser University's Human Security Report Project argued that the method overstated deaths and proposed a figure closer to 860,000; the IRC defended its work. About 2 million people were displaced, and the trade in conflict minerals that financed armed groups continues to fuel unrest.

Our 2000 map shows the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the middle of the war, our 1994 map shows Zaire on the eve of the crisis, and our 2010 map shows the country after the transition.