Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo Portal

Flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo	Coat of Arms of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Kinshasa, Congo DR, DR Congo, DRC, or simply either Congo or the Congo, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, the DRC is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 105 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous Francophone country in the world, and the fourth-largest in Africa. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), Zambia, Angola, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean.

Centered on the Congo Basin, the territory of the DRC was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was reached by the Bantu expansion about 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to 19th centuries. In the northeast, center, and east, the kingdoms of Azande, Luba, and Lunda ruled from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium formally acquired rights to the Congo territory from the colonial nations of Europe in 1885 and declared the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. From 1885 to 1908, his colonial military forced the local population to produce rubber and committed widespread atrocities. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory, which thus became a Belgian colony.

Congo achieved independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960 and was immediately confronted by a series of secessionist movements, the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the seizure of power by Mobutu Sese Seko in a 1965 coup d'état. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a harsh personalist dictatorship until his overthrow in 1997 by the First Congo War. The country then had its name changed back and was confronted by the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which resulted in the deaths of 5.4 million people. The war ended under President Joseph Kabila, who governed the country from 2001 to 2019, under whom human rights in the country remained poor and included frequent abuses such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties. Following the 2018 general election, in the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence, Kabila was succeeded as president by Félix Tshisekedi, who has served as president since. Since 2015, the Eastern DR Congo has been the site of an ongoing military conflict in Kivu.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely rich in natural resources but has suffered from political instability, a lack of infrastructure, corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation, followed by more than 60 years of independence, with little widespread development. Besides the capital Kinshasa, the two next largest cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. The DRC's largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of its exports in 2019. In 2021, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 179th out of 191 countries by the Human Development Index and is classed as a least developed country by the UN. , following two decades of various civil wars and continued internal conflicts, around 600,000 Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries. Two million children risk starvation, and the fighting has displaced 4.5 million people. The country is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, COMESA, Southern African Development Community, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, and Economic Community of Central African States. (Full article...)

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The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed conflicts in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo which have occurred since the end of the Second Congo War. Including neighboring Ituri province, there are more than 120 different armed groups active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently, some of the most active rebel groups include the Allied Democratic Forces, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, the March 23 Movement, and many local Mai Mai militias. In addition to rebel groups and the governmental FARDC troops, a number of national and international organizations have intervened militarily in the conflict, including the United Nations force known as MONUSCO, and an East African Community regional force.

Conflict began in 2004 in the eastern Congo as an armed conflict between the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the Hutu Power group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has broadly consisted of three phases, the third of which is an ongoing conflict. Prior to March 2009, the main combatant group against the FARDC was the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). Following the cessation of hostilities between these two forces, rebel Tutsi forces, formerly under the command of Laurent Nkunda, became the dominant opposition to the government forces. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Democratic Republic of the Congo-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 3Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 7Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 81908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké in c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20Force Publique soldiers in the Belgian Congo in 1918. At its peak, the Force Publique had around 19,000 Congolese soldiers, led by 420 Belgian officers. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27Branhamist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37The endangered mountain gorilla; half of its population live in the DRC's Virunga National Park, making the park a critical habitat for these animals. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 41Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48President Félix Tshisekedi with the president of neighbouring Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso in 2020; both wear face masks due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51Patrice Lumumba, first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo-Léopoldville, was murdered by Belgian-supported Katangan separatists in 1961. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Laurent Eketebi in 1960

Laurent-Gabriel Eketebi, later Eketebi Moyidiba Mondjolomba (13 May 1936 – February 2006), was a Congolese politician who served as President of Équateur Province from June 1960 until September 1962 and as President of Moyen-Congo Province from then until June 1964. He later served as State Commissioner of Transport and Communications from July 1972 until January 1975, when he was dismissed and charged with various financial crimes. Eketebi was convicted, but received a pardon in 1994. He died in 2006. (Full article...)

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Belgian Congo in World War II Abir Congo Company Yellala Falls South Kasai Free Republic of the Congo Atrocities in the Congo Free State Congo Crisis Congolese Independence Speech Common eland Barthélemy Mukenge Antoine-Roger Bolamba Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere Steve Zakuani William Henry Sheppard Okapi Battle of Rejaf

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Jason Sendwe (1917 – 19 June 1964) was a Congolese politician and a leader of the Association Générale des Baluba du Katanga (BALUBAKAT) party. He served as Second Deputy Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Republic of the Congo) from August 1961 until January 1963, and as President of the Province of North Katanga from September 1963 until his death, with a brief interruption.

Sendwe was born in 1917 in Mwanya, Kabongo Territory, Belgian Congo, to a Baluba family. He was educated in Methodist schools and nursing institutions. Unable to become a doctor due to a lack of medical schools in the Congo, he found work as a minister, teacher, and nurse. He became involved in several cultural organisations, and in 1957 founded BALUBAKAT to fight for the interests of the Baluba. He espoused nationalism and believed that the Congo should remain a united country after Belgian rule. In May 1960, shortly before the country's independence, he was elected to the newly constituted Chamber of Deputies. Sendwe sought to obtain control over the government of Katanga Province, but lost a power struggle against his rival, Moïse Tshombe, and the Confédération des associations tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT) party. Regardless, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba nominated him for the office of State Commissioner for Katanga. (Full article...)