Democratic Republic of the Congo

A recent spike in inter-community violence in the eastern province of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is worsening the plight of children there, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Monday, urging greater international support. 

With his new government, President Felix Tshisekedi has achieved victory in the power struggle with his predecessor, Joseph Kabila. He has flagged security in the country's troubled eastern region as a priority.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s Prime Minister announced a new Cabinet on Monday, completing a government overhaul by President Felix Tshisekedi that strengthens his hold on power.

Police in the eastern Congolese city of Beni have detained dozens of people and fired live rounds to disperse protesters demanding the departure of the United Nations peacekeeping mission for its failure to stop the bloodshed in the region, according to local authorities and witnesses.

The International Criminal Court upheld the convictions and a prison sentence of a former Congolese warlord Tuesday, dismissing his lawyers’ arguments that legal errors tainted his original trial.  

The 2023 electoral process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will mark “a new critical stage” in the country’s journey to democratic transition and stabilization, UN Special Representative Bintou Keita said on Tuesday in her first briefing to the Security Council. 

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More than 100 armed groups are active in the northeastern DRC, in a perpetual fight for political power, control of natural resources and survival. The U.N. refugee agency said one of them, the Allied Democratic Forces or ADF, has become especially violent of late, killing nearly 200 civilians and displacing an estimated 40,000 in the DRC’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces over the past two and a half months.

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Thirty people, including 11 civilians, have died in two days of fighting between government forces and a militia in the eastern DR Congo province of Ituri, the army said Thursday. The area, located in the territory of Djugu, around 60 kilometers (35 miles) from Ituri’s capital Bunia, is rich in gold, and CODECO has been accused by local civil groups of illegally extracting the precious metal.