DRC: Some 40,000 flee ongoing fighting every month

Since the mid-1990s, millions of Congolese have fled their homes to escape fighting between rebel groups and the national government in a complex conflict which has, at times, involved as many as nine neighbouring states. Close to four million people are estimated to have died as a result of the conflict which has been accompanied by widespread human rights violations. Displacement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) peaked in 2003, with an estimated 3.4 million people forced from their homes, most of them in the east.