Laurent-Désiré Kabila had seized power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with support from Rwanda and Uganda in 1997. However, Kabila turned against his former allies after progressively deteriorating relations. In response, Rwanda and Uganda started providing military support to several rebel groups within the DRC‘s borders, with armed conflicts breaking out on August 2nd 1998. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia took the DRC‘s side, and the war quickly escalated into a complex web of national militaries and rebel proxy groups fighting each other.
Overall, 9 African nations and over 25 armed groups were involved in the fighting. The conflict was marked by massacres, sexual violence and the recruitment of child soldiers and resulted in a humanitarian crisis with an estimated 5.4 million deaths due to starvation and disease. It ended in 2003 and is now known as the Second Congo War.
Pericles Foreign Policy 