Forgotten conflict

Congo | With focus on the Middle East, brutal fighting in Congo is worsening | Priya Abraham

Congolese troops after capture by Nkunda’s soldiers

Warning: graphic material included

War has supposedly ended in Democratic Republic of Congo. Around the sprawling country, the largest in central Africa, people voted in elections last year and armed militias turned in their weapons. But Congo's east refuses to be pacified.

Nowhere is the violence so evident as in the restive province of North Kivu. Intensified clashes between the Congolese army and forces led by a lanky, bespectacled rebel named Laurent Nkunda sent thousands fleeing onto rain-washed dirt roads in late October. The battles began one year ago, but in the last two months alone, humanitarian workers have seen some 176,000 dislocated. That swelled the province's total number of internally displaced refugees to 750,000.