DRC

The United Nations refugee agency today appealed for just under $40 million to help almost half a million civilians displaced by conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)....An estimated 390,000 people have been internally displaced in eastern DRC and more than 60,000 Congolese have fled to neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda since fighting erupted in the North Kivu province in April between Government forces and the M23 rebel group.

A spokesperson for Human Right Watch told the BBC that one woman had been gang-raped by M23 rebels, doused with petrol and then set alight. The lobby group said its evidence was based on interviews with 190 witnesses.

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M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are responsible for widespread war crimes, including summary executions, rapes, and forced recruitment. Thirty-three of those executed were young men and boys who tried to escape the rebels’ ranks.

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Human rights investigators say the insurgents are a retread of an earlier rebel band that operated in this same sector a few years ago. They extorted shopkeepers, abused civilians and answered to Gen. Bosco "the Terminator" Ntaganda — a fugitive who's wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

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"The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is undeniably facing both a leadership and a humanitarian crisis. The rapid progress of the M23 rebel group and its threat to seize control of Goma show that President Joseph Kabila has very little control over territory outside Kinshasa, particularly the eastern region. As a result, civilians have almost no personal security, with many inhabitants of the east running for their lives for the past 16 years.

Rival armed groups may have killed hundreds of civilians in massacres and other "incomprehensibly vicious" attacks in eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), senior U.N. officials said on Wednesday. The violence is focused in North Kivu near the border with Rwanda where warring groups have targeted villages seen as supporting their opponents, while the national army has been diverted to fight a movement of mutineers known as M23.

"The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is voting today on the final reporting requirements for U.S. companies potentially dealing in conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo. This vote comes after nearly three years of energized attention from activists across the United States calling for conflict-free products from Congo."

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For a second time, The Enough Project has ranked the largest electronics companies on their efforts toward using and investing in conflict-free minerals in their products. Our consumer action guide will help you understand what actions companies are (or are not) taking to contribute to the creation of a clean minerals trade in Congo, and ultimately, the reduction of conflict there.

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"Underscoring the severity of the situation, U.N. humanitarian chief Baroness Valerie Amos arrived in Goma on Tuesday and is to visit some of the 280,000 people who have fled their homes since mutinying soldiers launched the M23 rebellion in April. But security is so poor that Amos was forced to cancel planned trips to the mining town of Walikale and the seat of the rebellion in Rutshuru, 75 kilometers (50 miles) north of Goma."

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"The M23 rebels are allegedly led by renegade Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court. The M23 fighters launched their rebellion earlier this year after accusing the Congo’s government of failing to uphold their end of a March 2009 peace deal that integrated them into the army."

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"Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame held a one-on-one meeting last Sunday to discuss the recent deterioration of security along the border between their two countries.

They say if the Security Council fails to explain the peacekeepers’ ”real mandate,” they will assume that it has changed to make the U.N. an active partisan force, which would mean "to tell our forces to set up defenses against the U.N. troops, their infrastructure and staffers."

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Along with other leaders from the Great Lakes region, the DRC's Joseph Kabila and Rwanda's Paul Kagame put their signatures to an accord on Sunday that will facilitate the creation of an international military force to take on multiple insurgencies in the eastern Congolese provinces of North and South Kivu.

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The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for a Rwandan Hutu militia leader accused of war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The court Friday said Sylvestre Mudacumura is wanted on five counts of crimes against humanity and nine counts of war crimes, including murder, rape and mutilation.

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On 11 July some senior members of the ruling Parti populaire pour la reconstruction du Congo (PPRD) threatened to hunt down Tutsis and “send them back to Rwanda”

The following day, Information Minister Lambert Mende suspended the head of the national broadcasting company (RTNC) for not halting the live broadcast of the political rally where these threats were made.

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