RDC: "No coração das trevas"

Democratic Republic of Congo, a vast country in the heart of Africa, is trying to find its feet on the path to peace after a five-year conflict dubbed "Africa's world war" that involved seven countries and enveloped the region. The country's first post-war elections were held in 2006, but the vote highlighted a deep east-west divide along ethnic and linguistic lines. Elections in 2011 were marred by allegations of fraud. Although the war officially ended in 2003, violence continues to displace tens of thousands in the remote east. The largest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world is stationed in Congo, with 20,000 troops, and the International Criminal Court in The Hague is investigating allegations of war crimes. It's a Herculean task keeping control of a country the size of western Europe which lacks the most basic infrastructure. Jungle paths and rivers are often the only transit routes in the country formerly known as Zaire. Dozens of heavily armed groups – some of them with links to Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda – stoke ethnic rivalries and vie for control of valuable natural resources. Extensive criminal networks within Congo's security forces deliberately foster insecurity to profit from illegal mining, smuggling and poaching, the U.N. Group of Experts said in its June 2012 report. Rwanda and Uganda officially withdrew their troops from Congo in 2002 and 2003, and although they were often accused of keeping a foothold in Congo through proxy militias, much of the violence in the northeastern border regions originated in the power vacuum left behind when their armies pulled out. Reuters