DRC conflict death toll 3.8m
2004-12-09 22:30
Dakar, Senegal - Six years of continuing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have claimed almost
four million lives, half of them children, the International Rescue Committee said in a study released on Thursday.
Most of them were killed by disease and famine in the still largely cut-off east, the study showed.
For years, the international association has produced the most widely used running estimate of deaths in DRC, Africa's third-largest nation.
More than 31 000 civilians continue to die monthly despite peace deals reached by 2002, says the group, citing mortality surveys prepared with the help of on-site teams of physicians and epidemiologists.
The 1998-2002 war in Congo drew in the armies of five other African nations.
Neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda and allied Congolese rebel groups held control of the east and northeast. Government forces held the west.
The split cut off normal trade routes.
- AP