On one side of the lake, lovers glide on canoes, friends ride jet-skis and families pose for pictures in the hazy sunset. On the other side, less than two miles away, dead bodies washed ashore while ammunition and discarded weapons littered the water. The shore of Lake Kivu in Rwanda offers leisure and relaxation. Across…
Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global warming are ensnared in the effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D. One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in…
Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday entered the vital trading hub of Bukavu in the east of the country, according to the fighters and videos circulated by local residents. If confirmed, Bukavu would be the latest city to fall in a sweeping offensive that has revealed the weakness of the crumbling Congolese…
Sexual violence against children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has soared in recent weeks, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Thursday, as disputes over land and mineral resources fuel fighting in the country. The organization, known as UNICEF, reported that health care facilities in the city of Goma and the surrounding areas…
It was one of the deadliest battles in decades in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the city of Goma fell to a rebel group known as M23 last week, the International Red Cross said that civilians had paid a heavy price, and that the death toll was expected to go up as more bodies…
Mechanical diggers have spent days excavating the dark, volcanic earth of the city of Goma, preparing long trenches in which to bury the victims of one of the deadliest battles in decades in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Humanitarian workers in hazmat suits and teenagers in flip-flops and dirty masks tended to the dead amid…
After a week of fighting, rebels backed by Rwanda have wrested almost full control over Goma, a city of two million in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Hospitals are overflowing with the wounded, and the city morgue with the dead. Goma’s residents are beginning to emerge from their hiding places, desperately searching for water…
In famine-stricken Sudan, soup kitchens that feed hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in a war zone have shut down. In Thailand, war refugees with life-threatening diseases have been turned away by hospitals and carted off on makeshift stretchers. In Ukraine, residents on the frontline of the war with Russia may be going without firewood…
KINSHASA (Reuters) – French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has arrived in Congo’s capital Kinshasa, an official at the presidency said on Thursday, as Rwanda-backed rebels consolidated control of Goma in the east of the African country. “The Minister of Foreign Affairs of France will be received in the next few minutes by the president,” said…
Angolan President Joao Lourenco, who’s been mediating peace talks between Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo, called for the withdrawal of Rwandan-backed M23 rebels from the city of Goma and for Rwandan troops to leave Congolese territory. M23 invaded Goma with support from Rwanda’s army on Monday and the rebels now control a large part…