Photo timeline
War in the Kivus from 1993 to 2008
For fifteen years the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo have endured a war linked to regional politics, interethnic tensions, long-standing governance problems and the battle for the country’s rich natural resources – coltan, gold, oil and gas.
1993:
For many years a significant number of Rwandan-speaking minorities (Banyarwanda) had lived in North and South Kivu. Conflict between Hutu and Tutsi was increasing amongst this population while militias organized by local politicians carried out violent attacks against Rwandan groups, which in turn, organized counter attacks. In March 1993, an attack on a village sparked all-out war between the ethnic groups of the Masisi plains of North Kivu. Between April and July, at least 6000 people were killed and 350,000 driven from their homes and villages. They hid in schools, churches or with relatives. Medical facilities in the area were rapidly overburdened by the enormous inflow of new patients.
1994-1995:
The consequences of the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda spilled into Zaire (as DRC was called at that time). From April to July 1994, between 500,000 and 1 million Rwandans Tutsis, were systematically exterminated by militias under the control of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR). The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), an opposition movement organized by Tutsi exiles in Uganda, launched a military offensive in Rwanda and seized power in Kigali in early July 1994. More than 1 million Rwandan Hutus fled the country, driven out as a result of threats by the former authorities and as a result of fear of civilian massacres related to the RPF’s military advance.
They settled down in massive, overcrowded camps around Goma in North Kivu and in the Bukavu region of South Kivu. A cholera epidemic soon broke out in Goma, and MSF and other aid organizations mobilized to contain it by providing appropriate treatment. Nevertheless, cholera swept through the camps, killing more than 50,000 people.
In the meantime, security conditions in the refugee camps deteriorated. The perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide – Interahamwe militias, FAR (Forces armées rwandaises) soldiers and community leaders – had quickly gained positions of power in the camps. The camps were transformed into rear bases for attacking Rwanda, via a massive diversion of aid, violence, propaganda and threats against refugees wishing to repatriate.
Finding it impossible to provide independent and impartial aid, MSF ended some programs in November 1994. And after several months of fruitless attempts to improve the situation, MSF totally withdrew from the refugee camps in July 1995.
In June of 1995, conflict broke out in the Masisi area of North Kivu province, between local Hunde and Banyarwanda groups exacerbated by extremist Hutu elements in the Rwandan refugee population. The violence peaked in November.
As a consequence of the Rwandan conflict spilling into Zaire, Tutsis were targeted by all sides. Between July 1994 and the end of 1995, 38,000 Zairean Tutsis fled to Rwanda.
First Congo War
1996:
Laurent Désiré Kabila took command of a coalition of forces opposed to the government of Mobutu Sese Seko, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) in eastern Zaire.
On his side, the Rwandan government intended to eliminate the threat posed by extremists in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaïre. Supported by Burundi and Uganda, it trained and armed young Banyamulenge men who were recruited into Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s ADFL.
Then, in October, the Rwandan and Burundian armies, as well as the AFDL’s united forces, attacked refugee camps in the Kivus. For several weeks, hundreds of thousands of refugees were targeted. Humanitarian organizations and the press were denied access.
In November the new Rwandan regime authorized the return of refugees to Rwanda, and between 400,000 and 700,000 returned home. In the months that followed, rebels of AFDL and troops of the RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army, RPF’s military wing ) hunted down several hundreds of thousand additional refugees inside Zaire. During that time, the rebels, Rwandan authorities and for a certain period, the international community, denied that those refugees even existed. Armed groups used humanitarian aid as a lure to draw the refugees out of the forest, where they were hiding, and kill them .
1997:
The AFDL aided by Rwandan forces reached Kinshasa. Laurent Désiré Kabila was installed as the new president and the country officially became the Democratic Republic of Congo, ending the ‘first’ Congo war.
Second Congo War
1998:
Discord between the new leadership of the DRC and Rwanda and Uganda led to renewed fighting. Rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda rose up against Kabila and took over much of eastern Congo. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia supported Kabila. Eight countries and more than 25 armed groups were caught up in the fighting.
2000:
The UN security council authorized a security peacekeeping force to deploy in DRC and monitor a recently agreed ceasefire. The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) would become the world’s largest peacekeeping operation.
But large-scale fighting continued across the country. In North Kivu, insecurity led to displacement of populations and lack of access to health care. Malnutrition rates started to rise in the Masisi area. In 2000 MSF started running a feeding centre in the town of Kitchanga, where the population had quadrupled since the early 1990s due to displacement.
2001:
President Laurent Kabila was assassinated and replaced by his son Joseph Kabila. In the same year the United Nations Expert Panel on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported that warring parties were deliberately carrying on with the war in order to plunder mineral resources (gold, diamonds, coltan).
2002:
A peace deal was signed in South Africa between the DRC government and all rebel groups involved in the fighting. Rwanda promised to withdraw its troops, while the DRC was to disarm and arrest Rwandan Hutus responsible for the genocide, who are still present in the east of the country.
Meanwhile thousands of people continued to be repeatedly displaced in the east of the country. By the end of 2002, MSF opened new programmes in the northern area of North Kivu following the arrival of thousands of people who were fleeing the violence in Ituri. In South Kivu, fighting around the town of Baraka caused two thirds of the population in town to flee. Then volcano Nyriagongo erupted, devastating the city of Goma and leading to more displacement.
2003-2004:
In accordance with peace accords, a transitional government was formed with Joseph Kabila as president and the leaders of the main rebel groups as vice presidents. Rebel groups and militias were to be integrated into a new unified national army.
But Laurent Nkunda, leader of a Rwandan-backed rebel group, refused to go to Kinshasa to accept a post as brigade general in the integrated army. He declared that the peace accords only addressed power-sharing in Kinshasa, but not the problems in the Kivus. Following a mutiny in 2004, forces led by Nkunda took over the city of Bukavu for a few days.
2006: Joseph Kabila was formally elected president in the country’s first democratic elections in more than 40 years. Despite formal agreements to integrate armed groups into the DRC’s armed forces (the FARDC), various groups fought on.
Though peace returned to some of DRC’s war-torn regions, clashes between armed groups continue in the east. Violence and looting against civilians continued, leading to continuous displacement. Lack of infrastructure, ongoing displacement, and lack of access to potable water and adequate health care were the main causes for mortality among the population.
2007-2008:
In August 2007, there was a resurgence of fighting between the FARDC and the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), the group headed by Nkunda.
Despite a peace agreement brokered by the international community in January 2008, - and the Nairobi agreement between Rwanda and DRC in November 2007 - fighting and violations against civilians continued in North Kivu. In August, a massive upsurge in fighting led to large-scale displacement, and in October, the peace agreement fell apart when the CNDP took control of some territories and came close to Goma. On December 8, talks between CNDP and DRC government officials opened under a UN mediator in Nairobi.
