Posted on 01/06/2006 10:20:22 AM PST by Mark Felton
Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is killing 38,000 people each month, says the Lancet medical journal.
Most of the deaths are not caused by violence but by malnutrition and preventable diseases after the collapse of health services, the study said.
Since the war began in 1998, some 4m people have died, making it the world's most deadly war since 1945, it said.
A peace deal has ended most of the fighting but armed gangs continue to roam the east, killing and looting.
"Congo is the deadliest crisis anywhere in the world over the past 60 years," said Richard Brennan, health director of the New York-based International Rescue Committee and the study's lead author.
The war in DR Congo
"Ignorance about its scale and impact is almost universal and international engagement remains completely out of proportion to humanitarian need,"
Some 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers are in DR Congo, to restore peace and organise elections due by the end of June 2006.
Instead they focus on destroying George Bush, the man who has freed more people in the last 3 years than the UN has freed in its entire history.
Then that's why the UN is doing almost nothing - Christians are being persecuted and killed and that's okay with the pukes at the UN.
The Useless Nothings will sit and complain that they need more money. That is always their excuse, 'more $$'. Isn't something like 75% of their budget salaries? Where does it all go, they do nothing beneficial. What a pathetic, sick, useless group of dictators and socialist thugs.
On the other hand though, they mean well.
Maybe the UN will get around to doing something about the situation after they make certain they have raped anything that breathes at least twice. What is the big rush?
I believe a study of UN members would show a majority of muslim or communists not christians at any rate.
Sorry, you are incorrect about the religous makeup of the people of DRC. It is about 70% Christian, 10% Muslim.
Haven't heard anything about mosques. Perhaps you are thinking of another country?
"Reality doesn't say much"
The DR of Congo is 70% Christian and 10% Muslim. Wherin the motivation for violence is just as irrational, it is primarily based on tribal ethnic disputes rather than religion, driven by a paucity of resources controlled by corrupt leaders.
The place is a mess with refugees from Sudan, Burundi, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda and 5% of the population internally displaced.
The UN has maintained a force of 14,000 for a country of 60 million since 1999. Western nations have no major economic imperative to interfere with the death cycle, much as they ignored the ethnic genocide in Rwanda.
Whereas the UN has failed to stop the violence, were it not for the UN providing some level of humanitarian assistance and refugee support, I'd suggest that things would be even worse. I don't think it serves much good to gloat on this UN failure. Nor do I think it suitable to cite as a hotbed of anti-christian sentiment.
But if you want to believe that the Congolese crisis is somehow related to Christian persecution, and this helps to motivate you to do something about it, I'd suggest Googling "Congo Christian Relief" and donating.
I suspect, however, that you posted for some patriotic Muslim-baiting.
"Off the record, I see what's going on down there as natural selection. Nothing we can do about it."
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CIA Fact Book says DR of Congo is only 10% muslim. What do you know that they missed?
Well written.
I would also add perhaps googling Ituri, Lendu, and Hema to get a better understanding of the ethnic stife in Inturi that has led to some of the worst bloodshed in the country.
I'm not denying that too many people in the DRC have died over the course of the past 5-6 years. But let me point out that the figures quoted in this story do come from Lancet.
Considering how much his study on Iraq was lambasted on this site, we might want to keep the source in mind and look a little deeper.
"Democrat Republic?" The Congo is neither a republic nor is it democratic. The fiction that this country is a self-governing republic is a joke. Like most African nations it is unable to feed itself let along govern itself..
The Congo needs another 500 years of colonialism. But who wants the job?
*his = their
My Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2002 edition, states that the DR Congo is 2% Muslim (and 52% Roman Catholic, 20% Protestant, 10% Kimbanguist [Indigenous Christian], and 16% other syncretic sects and traditional beliefs.)
If this war had involved Muslims, we'd hear endless stories in tne MSM about how the innocent and peaceful Muslims were minding their own business and being subjected to constant, unprovoked attacks by those warlike and evil Christians, just like we read in all those other news stories about conflicts involving Muslims in Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt,.......
And exactly when was the last story you heard about Africa from the m/s media on any issue was when exactly?
you heard wrong.
Good post.
And or the googlers, "Hema" is more commonly spelled "Hima"
Since brevity is the sole of wit, you must be pretty funny in real life 8-)
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