Note: Javascript is disabled or is not supported by your browser. For this reason, some items on this page will be unavailable. For more information about this message, please visit this page: About CDC.gov.

On This Page

History of Conflict

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly known as Zaire) is located in central Africa and is the largest country by land mass in sub-Saharan Africa 1. For nearly 2 decades, DRC has been divided by armed conflict as a result of the First and Second Congo Wars (1996–1997 and 1998–2003,) and the Kivu Conflicts in eastern DRC (2004–present).

Following the Rwandan genocide in 1994, millions of Rwandan refugees flooded into the eastern DRC. In 1996, Rwanda and Uganda invaded eastern DRC in an effort to locate the remaining perpetrators ofthe genocide, who were believed to be hiding in camps there. A coalition comprised of the Ugandan and Rwandan armies, along with Congolese opposition leader Laurent Kabila, eventually defeated Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and his army, and Laurent Kabila became president of DRC, ending the First Congo War in 1997. In 1998, President Kabila ordered Rwandan and Ugandan forces to leave the eastern DRC, fearing invasion of the resource-rich territory by the 2 regional powers 1. This move sparked the beginning of the Second Congo War. With the involvement of 9 African countries and more than 20 armed militia groups, the Second Congo War is often referred to as “Africa’s World War” and is considered to be the deadliest global conflict since World War II 2.

Despite the