A May 2006 TIME Magazine article calls the devastation in Congo, "The Deadliest War in the World." The story goes on to read as follows: "Some wars go on killing long after they end. In Congo, a nation of 63 million people in the heart of Africa, a peace deal signed more than three years ago was supposed to halt a war that drew in belligerents from at least eight other countries, producing a record of human devastation unmatched in recent history.
Furthermore, "The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict in Congo began in 1998, making it the world's most lethal conflict since World War II."
A vast country with immense economic resources, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been at the centre of what could be termed Africa's world war - the largest war in modern African history, and one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II.
Despite a formal end to the war in July 2003 and an agreement by the former belligerents to create a government of national unity, 1,000 people died daily in 2004 from easily preventable cases of malnutrition and disease. A U.N. human rights expert reported in July 2007 that sexual atrocities against Congolese women go 'far beyond rape' and include sexual slavery, forced incest, and cannibalism.
An October 8, 2007 story on Democracy Now titled the horrow, "They Are Destroying the Female Species in Congo": Sexual Terrorism and Africa's Forgotten War.
The devastation must stop; America must act now.
