A Congolese soldier in Goma during protests against the UN peacekeeping mission in July 2022.
Michel Lunanga/AFP via Getty Images
Protests are likely to continue over the coming months, particularly in the run-up to the Congo presidential elections next year.
Congolese in Goma protest against the UN peacekeeping mission on 26 July 2022.
Michel Lunanga/AFP via Getty Images
The UN mission is being held responsible for something the Congolese state should be doing.
DRC President.
Felix Tshisekedi, left, receives a ceremonial mask from Belgium’s King Philippe in June 2022.
Arsene Mpiana/AFP via Getty Images
Belgium wants to frame its relationship with Congo, Rwanda and Burundi as one looking into the future – but the past weighs heavily.
A soldier from the armed forces of the DRC on foot patrol in the village of Manzalaho near Beni.
Alexis Huguet / AFP via Getty Images
Violence in the DRC can be brought to an end if the geographical scope of the conflict is broadened to include all neighbouring countries.
Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov are intent on growing Russia’s African influence.
Kremlin/Wikimedia Commons
Russia is trying to normalise an international order where might makes right. And democracy and respect for human rights are optional.
Professor Corneille Ewango of the University of Kisangani in a peat swamp.
along the Ikelemba River, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bart Crezee/University of Leeds
Peat is partially decomposed plant matter that has accumulated over thousands of years.
A march following the return of Patrice Lumumba’s tooth from Belgium – all that is left of the anti-colonialist icon murdered in 1961.
Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
All that remains of the political icon is a tooth, but it represents much more than just a human trophy.
A lab technician in Spain picks up a reactive to test suspected monkeypox samples.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images
The new name for monkeypox must be aligned with best practices in naming of infectious diseases to avoid the uninformed negative narrative that associates diseases with regions.
A protestor holds a picture of Patrice Lumumba.
Hatim Kaghat/AFP via Getty Images
Lumumba’s death triggered students and created a generation of activists that pushed for total liberation from exploitation and oppression.
Un soldat de la paix protège les civils dans l'est de la RDC.
Photo de Glody Murhabazi/AFP via GettyImages
Les récents affrontements ont remis le M23 de l'est du Congo à la une des journaux, mais de nombreux autres problèmes de sécurité persistent dans la région.
Mining and extracting metals has ecologically damaging consequences.
Shutterstock
Solar panels and electric cars come with their own environmental trade-offs like increased mining and extraction.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Belgian King Philippe toast at an official banquet in Kinshasa.
Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP via Getty Images
For relations with the DRC to truly improve, the Belgian state must acknowledge its historical responsibility more strongly.
Alain Libondo (17) left, and Nsinku Zihindula (25), hammering at solid rock to find cassiterite and coltan at Szibira, South Kivu.
Photo by Tom Stoddart via Getty Images
Coltan is indispensable to the making of modern electronic devices but its mining causes human and environmental disasters in the DR Congo.
UN peacekeepers on patrol.
Sia Kambou/AFP via Getty Images
Peacekeeping missions grab the headlines when they’re associated with tragedy and death – but that isn’t their full story.
A peacekeeper protects civilians who fled violent clashes between the army and the ex-rebels of the “M23” in eastern DRC in January 2022.
Photo by Glody Murhabazi/AFP via GettyImages
Recent clashes put eastern Congo’s M23 into the headlines again, but many other security problems persist in the area as diplomats struggle to tackle the underlying causes.
South Sudanese children play at a refugee camp in northern Uganda.
Geovien So/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Refugee law puts humanitarianism above considerations of state sovereignty.
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Many of Africa’s forests are unknown to the public at large, yet so fascinating and important.
Mother and child fleeing fighting between DRC and rebels backed by Ugandan forces shelter at a refugee camp in Zambia in 2003.
Photo by Natalie Behring-Chisholm/Getty Images
The case raises the question of what happens when a court that’s designed to keep international peace starts assigning crippling damage awards.
GettyImages.
Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images
La gestion internationale des épidémies, consiste parfois à céder leur contrôle à un groupe d'experts étrangers qui possèdent une compréhension superficielle d’une région très complexe.
Bisimwa Hardy, 22, emerges from a shaft at Luhihi in South Kivu with a bag full of stones destined to the crusher to separate the stone from the gold.
Photo by Guerchom Ndebo/AFP via Getty Images
As a dynamic and mechanising form of production, artisanal mining is in more direct competition with large corporations than is commonly perceived.