Instability caused by the influx of refugees from the Rwandan Civil War into the eastern part of the country led to the First Congo War from 1996 to 1997, ending in the overthrow of Mobutu. Its name was changed back to the DRC and it was confronted by the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which resulted in the deaths of 5.4 million people and the assassination of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The war, widely described as the deadliest conflict since World War II, ended under President Joseph Kabila, who restored relative stability to much of the country, although fighting continued at a lower level mainly in the east. Human rights remained poor, and there were frequent abuses, such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties. Kabila stepped down in 2019, the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence, after Félix Tshisekedi won the highly contentious 2018 general election. Since the early 2000s, there have been over 100 armed groups active in the DRC, mainly concentrated in the Kivu region. One of its largest cities, Goma, was occupied by the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels briefly in 2012 and again in 2025. The M23 uprising escalated in early 2025 after the capture of multiple cities in the east, including with military support from Rwanda, which has caused a conflict between the two countries.
Boma was the capital city of the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo (the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo) from 1 May 1886 to 1923, when the capital was moved to Léopoldville (since renamed Kinshasa). The port handles exports of tropical timber, bananas, cocoa, and palm products. (Full article...)
The following are images from various Democratic Republic of the Congo-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (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)
This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.
South Kasai (French: Sud-Kasaï) was an unrecognisedsecessionist state within the Republic of the Congo (the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) which was semi-independent between 1960 and 1962. Initially proposed as only a province, South Kasai sought full autonomy in similar circumstances to the much larger neighbouring state of Katanga, to its south, during the political turmoil arising from the independence of the Belgian Congo known as the Congo Crisis. Unlike Katanga, however, South Kasai did not explicitly declare full independence from the Republic of the Congo or reject Congolese sovereignty.
The South Kasaian leader and main advocate, Albert Kalonji, who had represented a faction of the nationalist movement (the Mouvement National Congolais-Kalonji or MNC-K) before decolonisation, exploited ethnic tensions between his own ethnic group, the Baluba, and the Bena Lulua to create a Luba-focused state in the group's traditional heartland in the south-eastern parts of the Kasai region. As sectarian violence broke out across the country, the state declared its secession from the Congo on 9 August 1960 and its government and called for the Baluba living in the rest of the Congo to return to their "homeland". Kalonji was appointed president. Although the South Kasaian government claimed to form an autonomous part of a federal Congo-wide state, it exercised a degree of regional autonomy and even produced its own constitution and postage stamps. The state, supported by foreign powers, particularly Belgium, and funded by diamond exports, managed numerous crises, including those caused by the large emigration of Luba refugees, but became increasingly militarist and repressive. (Full article...)
Lihau attended the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium with the help of sympathetic Jesuit educators, becoming one of the first Congolese to study law. While there he encouraged Congolese politicians to form an alliance that allowed them to secure the independence of the Congo from Belgium. He served briefly as a justice official and negotiator for the Congolese central government before being appointed to lead a commission to draft a permanent national constitution. He was made dean of law faculty at Lovanium University in 1963. The following year he helped deliver the Luluabourg Constitution to the Congolese, which was adopted by referendum. (Full article...)
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