Since 1996 Rwanda and Uganda invaded the eastern DRC in an effort to root out the remaining perpetrators of the genocide. A coalition comprised of the Ugandan and Rwandan armies, along with Congolese opposition leader Laurent Désiré Kabila, eventually defeated dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Laurent Désiré Kabila became president in May 1997 and in 1998 he ordered Rwandan and Ugandan forces to leave the eastern DRC, fearing annexation of the mineral-rich territory by the two regional powers. Kabila’s government received military support from Angola and Zimbabwe and other regional partners. ensuing conflict has often been referred to as Africa’s World War with nine countries fighting each other on Congolese soil due to its natural resources and minerals. After a bodyguard shot and killed President Kabila in 2001, his son Joseph Kabila was appointed president at the age of 29. The April 2002 Sun City Agreement, the ensuing July 2002 Pretoria Accord between Rwanda and Congo, as well as the Luanda Agreement between Uganda and Congo, put an official end to the war as the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power in July 2003. In 2006 Joseph Kabila won the presidency in the DRC’s first democratic elections in 40 years. In 2008 the DRC and Rwanda joined forces to root out the FDLR in South and North Kivu provinces.

In January 2009 the CNDP split and as part of a deal between Rwanda and the DRC, Kigali put CNDP leader Laurent Nkunda under house arrest. The remaining CNDP splinter faction, led by Bosco Ntaganda, was supposed to integrate into the national army. But instead, Ntaganda led a new rebel group, M23, which became active in eastern Congo in 2012. Ntaganda, also known as “the Terminator,” walked in to the U.S. embassy in Kigali in March 2013 and surrendered to the International Criminal Court’s custody. Accused of thirteen counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity in The Hague. The peace process in eastern Congo continues to be fragile with multiple armed groups operating throughout the region, terrorizing civilians and blocking the path to long-term peace. This long-term history of conflicts has caused more than 5 million of deaths, ten of thousands of women victims of sexual violence/rape, tens of thousands of children under 18 years old being recruited by militias to fight in war, millions of refugees flying their communities and exile due to hostilities and millions of war-affected orphans were identified; most of the people from the eastern DRC are traumatized and marginalized yet the international community remains silent to these calamities and human rights abuses; international medias almost remain silent about the conflict history from the DRC which is the adversity of the Congolese population especially from the Eastern until now. DRC has 26 provinces, the second largest country in Africa, rich from the soil and subsoil resources, its richness is being benefited by multinational  companies worldwide, the fate of its population is suffering from rebellions and militias who are pathways to export minerals illegally causing misfortune to Congolese people especially from the Eastern. cfr: Eastern Congo Initiave and Monusco archives