LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Congo: Eastern Congo
built 649 days ago
All sides to the renewed fighting in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo must protect civilians at risk, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch ... called on United Nations peacekeepers in the area to strengthen their civilian protection efforts.
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With the help of aid agencies, child soldiers in the eastern Congo are leaving the ranks and reuniting with their families. But the memories and the nightmares are never far behind. Read Full Entry
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Eastern Congo is not, and will never be, a “dumping ground” for Uganda , Rwanda , Burundi , and who else might have, excess population. Eastern Congo will never be a colony of exploitation and settlement of Uganda , Rwanda , and Burundi . Make no mistake about it.
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Ethnic tensions, economic deprivation and interests, and foreign involvement are elements in the complexity of the Congo's civil war. The International Rescue Committee reports that between August 1998 and April 2001 approximately 2.5 million people have died due to the conflict (2001). Ethnic hostilities, primarily in the eastern part of DRC, led to the civil war that broke out in 1996. During Mobutu's rule, discrimination, economic degradation, and campaigns against the Tutsi people increased. The influx of Hutu refugees from the Rwandan conflict in 1994 only exacerbated existing ethnic tensions (CRS 8-9). The Hutu militia responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the interahamwe, gained control over much of the eastern part of the DRC and Kabila was unable to resolve the problem.
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Despite the supposed cessation of hostilities, massacres continued in eastern Congo during 2003-2004. Rwandan Hutu militiamen feared returning to Rwanda, believing they would be targeted by revenge-seeking Tutsis. These Hutu remained in the forests of east Congo, preying on villages for food and money. Rwandan incursions into the DRC disrupted the fragile government and created instability. In December 2004, rival units within the DRC's national army clashed in the eastern part of the country. In May 2005 it was reported that Rwandan Hutu rebels based in eastern Congo were responsible for hundreds of summary executions, rapes, beatings and hostage-taking of Congolese civilians in the territory of Walungu, South Kivu Province.
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The 2,733 mile long Congo River lies mostly within the territory of the country. The enormous semicircular bend in the river delineates a central depression known as the cuvette, with an average altitude of 1,300 ft. Around this densely forested section, which covers nearly half the area of the country, a succession of plateaus rise gradually to height of over 5,000 ft in the northeast and southeast. The highest altitudes are found along the eastern fringe of the country, on the edge of the Great African Rift Valley, where dislocation of the strata has produced important volcanic and mountain masses, the most notable of which is Mt. Ruwenzori, with its peak rising to a level of 16,795 ft.
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Eastern Congo