The Forgotten Emergency
by The Congo Killings need to be stopped – except no one knows about it.
The Congo killings have been going on since the mid 1990s. They are still going on up to today.
They are mainly between the rebel groups, LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), renegade-general Laurent Nkunda’s CNDP, and the Congo military.
More than 5 million people have died from causes associated with the conflict. About 1.4 million people remain displaced in the country, and there are approximately 340,000 Congolese refugees in neighboring countries. Civilians in eastern Congo continue to endure targeted attacks by all armed groups.
Just this last December, around 37,000 people have escaped from Faradje, a town that borders Sudan, including at least 10,000 children. This is that cause of the aforementioned LRA who continue to terrorize the people of the Congo. However there was some support; Uganda, Congo and South Sudan launched a joint assault against the LRA on December 14, 2008 after the rebel leader, failed (again) to sign a peace treaty to end the rebellion against the Ugandan government.
These killings have been constituted as a ‘War Crime’ by the United Nations. There is much in question of why we have not heard more about the subject and many people are appalled of the lack of media coverage in Africa.
The systematic approach of these killings have lead people to think of genocide with the thousands of people dying every day, as a direct result of the conflict or otherwise.
Action Needed
- UN agencies and humanitarian organizations must work together to find ways to help the people affected by displacement.
- The UN must prioritize the protection of civilians as well as the resources to do this.
- Other, more developed, countries must engage in helping the Congo become politically stable.
For a video on the situation please go to:
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