Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has struggled with political and social instability since independence from Belgium in 1960.
Beginning in 1998, it was the epicenter of a conflict dubbed Africa’s World War, which involved nine countries, killed an estimated 5.4 million people and left hundreds of thousands of missing.
By June 2012 UNICEF estimated that 2.2 million people had been internally displaced in the eastern DRC as a result of the conflict.
In addition to a sizable population of internally displaced citizens the DRC has large numbers of refugees from the Central African Republic, Rwanda, and Burundi. While hundreds of thousands of DRC citizens have been displaced to Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The UN is helping to train forensic experts in the DRC to examine mass graves. In one area alone, it is alleged that mass graves containing 49,000 bodies have been found.
In its 2022 DRC country profile, the International Center for Not for Profit Law (ICNL) noted that “The government has increasingly cracked down on criticism, including through the forced ‘disappearance’ of journalists and the blocking of opposition protests. The public authorities justify these crackdowns as necessary to preserve ‘public order’ and have used the same justification when implementing COVID-19 measures, such as curfews and bans on demonstrations and public gatherings.”
