If there’s a hall of fame for countries that have been victims of the world’s greatest injustices, Congo surely has a place of prominence. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the systematic looting and exploitation of the area by King Leopold II of Belgium resulted in the deaths of more than three million people. Following independence in 1960 came the three-decade reign of Mobutu Sese Seko, who renamed the country Zaire. It is hard to comprehend how thoroughly Mobutu looted this mineral-rich nation while simultaneously under investing in almost anything that could benefit his people. Even today this country, roughly the size of the United States east of the Mississippi, has fewer than 500 miles of paved roads.

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, Congo was embroiled in an eight-nation conflict that finally ended with a treaty in 2003. Democratic elections in 2006 put a president in power in Kinshasa, the capital, who even today confronts fighting among forces representing the government and rebel groups in the east. It’s no stretch to say that Congo is a tinderbox from which conflict could spread too much of central and east Africa. And according to a major series of surveys carried out by IRC, nearly four million more Congolese died than might have been expected between 1998 and 2004 due to an imploded national health system and the inability to stop even preventable diseases, such as measles. Shockingly, about half of those overall deaths have been in children under age five.

Some 350,000 people have fled fierce fighting between government troops and rebels in North Kivu’s Rutshuru District. The IRC was one of the first organizations to provide assistance on the ground. The IRC hopes the recent peace agreement in North Kivu will mean an end to the hostilities and a restart of reconciliation and recovery efforts.

Congo’s loss is equivalent to the entire population of Denmark or the state of Colorado perishing within a decade. Marcus Bleasdale tells the story of the conflict and its aftermath in photographs.    

Helping Women Heal

Rape is used as a weapon of war in Congo. Armed groups rape to terrorize and control women and communities and to humiliate families. It’s calculated and it’s brutal. The International Rescue Committee is focusing on emergency care, counseling, prevention, advocacy and other support for survivors.     

Nicholas Kristof devoted much of his column in The New York Times yesterday to the situation in eastern Congo, “the rape capital of the world.” His companion blog on the Times Web site notes that the International Rescue Committee is “among the few private aid groups” active there.

How could an estimated four million people have died in Congo from 1998 to 2004, with the world paying so little attention to the scope of this humanitarian disaster? How is it that this high death rate is still tolerated, amid ongoing signs that the trend hasn’t abated? Why is it that the world can focus its attention on some global crises, like Darfur, but not on others—particularly when, as in Congo, the violence happens over time through neglect? How is it that aid delivered to tsunami-affected areas in South and Southeast Asia in 2005 exceeded by 100 times the per-person amount of international assistance that went to Congo that same year?