The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been sliding back into full-scale war in recent weeks. Since late August, rebels from the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) have been fighting the Congolese army in the Congo’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, devastating countless communities and their peoples’ livelihoods. Around 100,000 civilians are estimated to be displaced by the recent fighting, adding to the 1.2 million Congolese people already displaced in the Kivu provinces from years of war.

The Congo Advocacy Coalition, a group of 83 Congolese and international aid agencies and human rights groups, is calling for urgent action to protect and care for Congolese civilians devastated by recent violence.

Despite successive peace agreements, eastern Congo has suffered continuous warfare since 1998, costing the lives of over 5.4 million people, the highest war-related death toll since World War II. An estimated 45,000 people continue to die every month as a result of the war, mostly from disease and malnutrition.

In January 2008, the Congolese government and 22 armed groups signed the Goma peace agreement intended to end over ten years of war in the conflict-ridden East. While consistently dishonored, the recent fighting is the latest and largest violation of the ceasefire.

Civilians, particularly women and girls, have borne the brunt of the conflict in eastern Congo. Many have been wounded or killed in the crossfire, children have been abducted and forced to become soldiers, and women and girls have been systematically and brutally raped. Many of these abuses have been carried out by the Congolese army, which pillages personal property and exacts illegal ‘taxes’ from civilians.

“Again and again,” said one man who fled the recent fighting, “we are attacked, we flee, our houses are pillaged, and then we are displaced with nothing.”

The CNDP rebel group claims to be fighting to protect ethnic Tutsis in the face of genocidal forces in the Congo, such as Hutu-led militias with roots in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Nkunda’s forces, however, are also guilty of severe abuses.

The Congo Advocacy Coalition is calling on all parties to the Goma peace agreement (which includes the CNDP), as well as international donors and facilitators to the peace process (the U.S., the E.U., the U.N. and the African Union), to intensify their efforts to implement the Goma agreement.

The ENOUGH Project, a member of the coalition’s steering committee, has developed an approach called the “Four Ps,” designed to end such mass atrocities as those happening in the Congo: promoting peace, protecting civilians, punishing the perpetrators, and taking the steps necessary to prevent future crimes against humanity. Such a framework is essential for ensuring the immediate and long-term cessation of mass atrocities in the Congo. 

The people of eastern Congo have suffered through decades of deprivation and over ten years of war. The international community must work together to help bring peace to one of the world’s worst, and most neglected, humanitarian tragedies.