Burundian military officers arrive in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to tackle the rise of militias in the region.
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The RED-Tabara armed group operates out of the DRC’s volatile eastern region, which shares a porous 243km border with Burundi.
Play and storytelling are a crucial part of children’s cognitive development.
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Children benefit enormously from regular, cognitively stimulating interactions with their caregivers.
Several campaigns have been waged against statues linked to Africa’s colonial past.
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The fate of several colonial statues in Africa continues to be a subject of controversy.
People protest against the conflict in eastern DRC during an African Union assembly in Addis Ababa on 17 February 2024.
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Protests in Kinshasa are an indictment of the lack of attention to the Congolese crisis.
Children’s education is frequently disrupted in conflict-fraught areas.
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Education can spur peace and development. Here are five essential reads on the topic.
President Félix Tshisekedi greets his supporters after his re-election in Kinshasa on 31 December 2023.
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Those who reject recourse to the courts in favour of street demonstrations are taking the wrong approach to the current democratic turning point.
M23 rebels in Kibumba in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Glody Murhabazi/AFP via Getty Images.
The new intervention force must be sizeable, and have proper air cover as well as transport and air elements. None are guaranteed.
A comparison of dreams shows they play out much differently across various socio-cultural environments.
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Dreaming differs across cultures, and these differences may hold the clue to how and why dreaming evolved for humans and other species.
Kenyan soldiers from the East African Community Regional Force leave the Democratic Republic of Congo on 3 December 2023.
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Chances of longer term peace are small because of the DRC’s assumption that it can achieve peace through sheer military force.
Ugandan soldiers in the deep forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021.
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Regional rivalries have functioned as oxygen, allowing the rebel group to survive and grow.
Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi speaks in the capital Kinshasa.
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Plenty remains to be done to improve the lives of Congolese citizens.
Beledweyne city in Somalia, under water following a flood.
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Funding climate adaptation in conflict areas may require engaging local communities and armed groups where national governments are absent.
Processing facilities in Tenke Fungurume Mine, one of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the world, in south-eastern DRC.
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Since the 1990s, transnational corporations have once again become the dominant force as owners and managers of major mining projects.
Rwandan soldiers on patrol in northern Mozambique in 2021.
Emidio Jozine/AFP via Getty Images
Rwandan forces have been able to keep civilian casualties low in Cabo Delgado despite carrying out a counterterrorism operation.
Residents of Bambo in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, flee after M23 attacks in October 2023.
Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images
The international effort to address three decades of violence in eastern DRC has drawn in the UN, east African troops and now a southern African force.
DRC’s outgoing president Joseph Kabila (left) with his successor Felix Tshisekedi in January 2019.
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Laurent Kabila and his son Joseph were the Democratic Republic of Congo’s third and fourth presidents.
Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, at a UN meeting in July 2023.
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The push for national trials reflects a disappointment with the slow pace and high costs of international justice.
A soldier guards a camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in January 2023.
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Central to the DRC’s politics is a broken relationship between the seat of government in Kinshasa and underrepresented groups in the eastern region.
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Without policies that take account of a growing population with few working-age people, DRC risks seeing an increase in poverty and hunger.
Soldiers from South Sudan prepare to be deployed to help restore peace in the DRC.
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The causes of violence in the DRC are complex. Narrowing them down to the single lens of ethnicity can be misleading.