The Democratic Republic of the Congo (French: République démocratique du Congo), sometimes referred to as DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa or the DRC, is a country located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world. With a population of over 75 million,[1] the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the nineteenth most populous nation in the world, the fourth most populous nation in Africa, as well as the most populous officially Francophone country. It borders the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi in the east; Zambia and Angola to the south; the Republic of the Congo, the Angolan exclave of Cabinda, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west; and is separated from Tanzania by Lake Tanganyika in the east.[1] The country has access to the ocean through a 40-kilometre (25 mi) stretch of Atlantic coastline at Muanda and the roughly 9 km wide mouth of the Congo River which opens into the Gulf of Guinea. It has the second-highest total Christian population in Africa. The Second Congo War, beginning in 1998, devastated the country and is sometimes referred to as the "African world war" because it involved nine African nations and twenty armed groups.[5][6] Despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, fighting continued in the east of the country in 2007. There, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world.[7] The war is the world's deadliest conflict since the Chinese Civil War, killing 5.4 million people since 1998.[8][9][10] More than 90% were not killed in combat. They died from diseases that were both preventable and treatable (malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition) aggravated by displaced populations living in unsanitary and over-crowded conditions that lacked access to shelter, water, food and medicine.[11] Forty seven percent of those deaths were children under five.[8] Until today the ongoing conflicts exacerbate the exhaustion of the country's great agricultural potential. This is one reason for a high mortality rate and prevalence of malnutrition.[12] Conflict for control of the mineral wealth is behind some of the most violent atrocities.[13] The Democratic Republic of the Congo was formerly, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Republic of the Congo, and Zaire (Zaïre in French).[1] Though it is located in the Central African UN subregion, the nation is also economically and regionally affiliated with Southern Africa as a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). On and off fighting in the Ituri conflict occurred between the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) who claimed to represent the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups, respectively. In the northeast, Joseph Kony's LRA moved from their original bases in Uganda (where they have fought a 20-year rebellion) and South Sudan to DR Congo in 2005 and set up camps in the Garamba National Park.[34][35] In northern Katanga, the Mai-Mai created by Laurent Kabila slipped out of the control of Kinshasa. In 2009, people in the Congo may still be dying at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month,[36] and estimates of the number who have died from the long conflict range from 900,000 to 5,400,000.[37] The death toll is due to widespread disease and famine; reports indicate that almost half of the individuals who have died are children under the age of 5.[38] There have been frequent reports of weapon bearers killing civilians, destroying property, widespread sexual violence,[39] causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes or otherwise breaching humanitarian and human rights law. A new study says more than 400,000 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo every year.[40] On February 24, 2013 a United Nations-backed accord aimed at stabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo called the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo was signed in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa by eleven African countries -- Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania (UN News Centre 2013). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo Image by Medill DC Uploaded by MyCanon (Ben Affleck) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

• published: 13 Aug 2013
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