satisticts

war has ben going on since 1998
5,400,000 people have died

how it all began

The situation in Ituri must be seen in the context four and a half years of civil war in Congo, which has involved the armies of six African countries. As part of that war, soldiers from neighbouring Uganda exacerbated rivalries in Ituri by favouring one side over the other. When the Ugandan troops withdrew as part of a peace deal to end the larger civil war, local Hema and Lendu militias went to war with each other.

COUNTING DEATHS TO SAVE LIVES

A January 2008 IRC survey found that 5,400,000 people have died from war-related causes in Congo since 1998 – the world’s deadliest documented conflict since WW II. The vast majority died from non-violent causes such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition—easily preventable and treatable conditions when people have access to health care and nutritious food.

If you were in the position of the children in the war what would you do?

please respond(now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Child soldiers in the Congo

Former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga has pleaded not guilty to charges of using child soldiers, at the International Criminal Court (ICC). He faces six charges of recruiting and using hundreds of children aged under 15 to fight in DR Congo's brutal five-year conflict, which ended in 2003. He had used the children to "kill, pillage and rape”. There was a Seven-month delay for the judges to decide his fate. Prosecutors say child soldiers enlisted for Mr. Lubanga's ethnic Hema militia were used to kill members of the rival Lendu ethnic group, or as his bodyguards.
He said: "Lubanga's militia recruited, trained and used hundreds of young children to kill, pillage and rape.



Quick review

Leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, an ethnic Hema militia

Accused of recruiting children under 15 as soldiers

Says he was trying to bring peace to Congo's eastern Ituri region

Arrested in Kinshasa in March 2005

Held by the ICC at The Hague since 2006

Born in 1960, has a degree in psychology