The Congo War Explained (and why it’s escalating) 

War's in Africa get very little global attention. The Ethiopian Tigray war was the deadliest war this century with over 600k deaths but most people don't even know about it

Well done for being one of the only channels that highlights what’s is happening in the world

No, the reason why it gets no coverage is because its in Africa, and we stereotype it as a "typical african conflict"

Well done TLDR for highlighting this crisis

Learned about the Rwanda genocide at school. Makes sense that the dominoes still effect things today.

15 million people have died in Congo DRC conflict and nobody speaks about it

The Tigray war, tensions in the Horn, the west African insurgencies, and the mess in northern Mozambique: global media tend to gloss over or ignore African matters no matter how big they get

Thanks for your support. WE are suffering in Congo 😢

What is the bloodiest war since WW2? Vietnam? Korea? Ukraine? Nope, it's the Second Congo War - AKA the World War of Africa. And it was only one chapter in a series of interconnected conflicts. Almost nobody knows about this, and it drives me crazy. Thank you so much for covering this

Another reason why it gets less attention ( and honestly probably the main reason why) is because this war has been going on for decades and decades some 27 years. It started 1996ish which for a lot people feels like a forever war.

Here is what happened: There was a genocide in Rwanda, and people who did that genocide fled to Congo. There, they were armed by the French's somewhat rogue government members (see Lt. Col. Guillaume Ancel's testimony) and Mobutu the Congolese dictator. Kagame invaded the Congo to chase Mobutu and hunt down these genocide criminals in 1996 and since that day, there has been wars and proxy wars between Rwanda and the Congo. To this day, in Rwanda there are 1.4+ million confirmed dead from the genocide (numbers who are buried in genocide memorial sites) and there is at least 12 million dead in the Congo in these wars. A further 1 million Rwandans are presumed dead in Congolese forests as they fled with the exiled government. In total, that is around 30 to 50% of the 1994 Rwandan population and 15% of the Congolese population of that era. About the 1 million Rwandans who died fleeing, basically the exiled government told them "if you go back, Kagame will finish you" and those who even dreamed of returning to Rwanda were killed on the spot by these fleeing bureaucrats. Many refugees died in the forests due to a very bad life and lack of resources, etc. They will go on until there is no more FDLR in the Congo because this FDLR is classified as a terrorist group and it was the armed wing of the exiled government responsible for the millions dead in the Rwandan genocide. Everything else like the minerals, everyone in the region buys minerals from smugglers who steal them. The minerals come as a side effect of the actual bigger war which is Rwanda's unending desire to root out all of FDLR and the Congolese government which has elements that support and others that despise this group (so alliances change based on who has the most favor from the presidency). Normally a few years ago, Rwanda was doing joint operations with Congo against FDLR, they even killed its then commander Gen Mudacumura. Something happened which we don't know and the cooperation stopped and now it's war with FDLR's CRAP (Commando de Recherche et d'Action en Profondeur) fighting for the Congolese army. This unit is one of FDLR's most elite and it is the only proven Long range reconnaisance Patrol unit in the theater (so all those precision drone strikes against M23 that killed colonels and majors in meetings, it is these guys who probably do the field recon and directing of these strikes). This will probably end in some sort of reconciliation as it always does, then war again, then reconciliation, then war, it is a never ending cycle.

My grandpa, talking about the conflict in the Congo, said nobody cares a bunch of you know what dying. It made me so sad, then again he was probably speaking the truth.

Thanks for bringing more awareness to this one. It definitely doesn’t get nearly enough.

Thanks for shedding light on this.

This was a phenomenon segment. Especially that closing message. Thank you so much for your reporting

Thank you for sharing this information about my country brother. 🙏🙌🙌👏👏🇨🇩🇨🇩🐆🐆

Thank you TLDR for covering this topic - as a Congolese-American, it breaks my heart knowing that Congo (and specifically eastern Congo in Goma) have been experiencing these crises since before I was born. This also needs to be highlighted given the fact that Congo’s minerals and natural resources are utilized all over the world and should be a reminder to stand in solidarity with those who are displaced/oppressed/subjugated globally.

Thanks for shining your spotlight on this vexing crisis in a largely balanced & informed way.

thanks for posting, the best content I've seen about Congo. Period.

Thank you very much for the update

No one: Every Congo video: KING LEOPOLD

Videos like this are why the TLDR crew are the best on the scene

Well done, very relevant!!

thank you for making this video! I've been trying to do more research on this situation and there's definitely less info out there

Love tour videos. You do great work. You seem to do ground work far better than the so called big medias

WHY IS NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THIS????

Thank you for informing people of other conflicts in the world. Sadly, social media and the news dictate what stories are worthy of coverage.

Thank you soo much for covering such an important topic

Good to see this being covered

Some romanian soldiers who were sent as peacekeepers were killed last week. I feel bad for them and anyone who fell prey to this conflict. I hope DRC will finally catch a break that it deserves

Thanks TLDR for the video, very informative.

Thank you for informing ppl about congo 🙏🏽🇨🇩

This war in the Congo is indeed tragic. Hopefully, some kind of peace can be achieved soon.

I love how this channel is explaining african wars which are largely ignores

I have so many more questions now but this was a good start i think.

Thanks for covering this

I like how there is minecraft stuff in so many of ur videos lol

I just want to say, I've really been enjoying the little tidbits of gaming being edited into these videos with the Team Fortress 2 vote, those Minecraft blocks etc.

Thanks for reminding me.

Thanks for shedding some light on what is going on around the world, when no one is concerned

7:09 there's already drama over this here in South Africa, South Africans don't want our soldiers deployed over there, rather at our border to protect it, and now there's 2 soldiers dead and 3 injured from mortar shelling.

Thank you for explaining what’s going on in the Congo. I’ve heard people mentioned it but no one’s really playing attention.

Very well explained...Thank you!!

Let me sit down and listen to this and learn. I have always been puzzled about this war

"World's apparent lack of interest" - and then the moment the world does take interest and picks a side to support - "stop interfering"

The absolutely horrendous geography and insanely complicated tribal politics guarantee that no outside country is going to want anything to do with this dumpster fire unless they have no other choice. It sucks, but the locals are gonna have to solve this one on their own.

Thank you for highlighting this never ending tragedy, this all because someone somewhere wants 🇨🇩 natural resources at all costs

I need to watch this multiple times

"Ethnic tutsi", not really. Tutsi and Utu are overall one people of different cast. The Belges and French altered this class structure by *creating* these ethnicities and weaponizing the "differences" to fuel civil war in Rwanda.

Well done TLDR for being willing to report this! In most cases horrible events only make the news if one side has a powerful enemy who is willing to put a lot of money into publicising it. Thanks for speaking up for people who don't have powerful friends or enemies.

Thank you TLDR

Thank you Man

stay strong DR Congo people

They fight for resources before education and skill learning instead of the other way around. This is why some of these countries will always fail.

thank you so much

World can't not be peaceful, unless we all get together, maybe one day

African war timeline. 1: War over resources. 2: Sell it to China to build infrastructure. 3: Nationalise infrastructure 4: Repeat.

I said it once that Rwanda is milking the genocide past. They keep playing the victims while being the aggressors. And they triggered the genocide and only fortunate to have won the war.

Finally a news outlet telling the truth

"We want more attention and help from the world!" "UN, get out!"

It appears that now any bold man with a certain set of skills can carve out his own personal fief in this fallen kingdom Not me but someone can

Sadly a lot of people are clueless and don’t know about all the wars in Africa

@Tldrnewsglobal please talk about the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon 💔💔😭😭😭🇨🇲🇨🇲🇨🇲🇨🇲🇨🇲🇨🇲

The idea is that Africa is always in conflict. Without knowing what's happening in Congo most people would assume would assume there's a war in Africa.

Can you please do same vid for Mozambique conflict

Rwanda and kagame have never been sanctioned for what they are doing backing M23 a Tutsi rebel group

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT 🙏❤❤❤ THANKS THANKS 🙏 MAY GOD BLESS YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️

2:00 coltan is shown over minecraft copper ore, when coltan is refined for niobium and tantalum.

No way they used Minecraft ores as their ore pictures 💀

Thanks 🇨🇩🇨🇩🇨🇩

About time

There needs to be more news about this conflict! It's not right that they're being ignored.

Can you make a similar video for the ongoing Sudanese civil war?

😢 how can we end the conflict and struggles?

The spelling of FDLR changing to FLDR earlier in the video confused me.

This is one of the conflicts in Africa I find so interesting and I wonder if Congo can figure its stuff out and resolve this

Honestly cant praise TLDR enough. My main source for reliable unbias news. How can these young people make MSM look so juvenile

I'm rwandese but I can prove that what u said 90% is true. Most concerned is Rwanda's security where fdrl rebel which have committed genocide in Rwanda is very active and it is helped by drc gvt. Other are those minerals that are now wanted by the whole world even if m23 is the most known rebel but they are more than 120 rebels that have been working in drc ,and nobody is concerned to it .

Cameroon🇨🇲 is bleeding because of Anglophone crisis 💔😭😭

We didn't forget it. We got use to it....

I see you got focus and objective, I would like you to reaserch about Mozambique a country at war within itself since 1964, duo to a Government that it's against its own peaple

Congo people are literally in Minecraft Civilization rn

For how much is going on there's little being published about this

I love how TLDR is adding more and more gaming references

Thank you very much. Here an important note. M23 is made of Tustis, the same tribe that claimed to be victims of hutus genocide in Rwanda in 90s yet they ran hutus out of Rwanda and control Rwanda since after also committing a genocide on hutus and now on Congolese. Importantly the Congolese have 450 tribes who been living in peace for centuries. Tustis are not autochtones to the Congo, they were welcomed in 70s by Mobutu yet want to claim the Congo just like they did with Rwanda. Kagame the Rwanda president has personal expansionist ambitions which he does not hide, he is using the tutsis we welcomed , making the same false claim of genocide of tutsis against a country which has 450 tribes yet never commited genocide against each other while Rwanda with only two tribes we know what they did to each others. If the Tutsis we welcomed in the Congo feel Congolese, they should NOT spread other Congolese blood and seek Rwanda help to destroy Congolese lives. How do you want us to feel about them after losing so many of our people and after so many years of war and destruction of our country?

Thank you for this video. The worst part, for me, is that I learnt about it back in 2016 when a French rapper with DR Congolese origins mentioned it in a song. He tries to mention it whenever he can and that made me a fan. Main medias in France have barely talked about it and I know why : coltan. It's mostly found in DR Congo and it's vital for many devices we use daily such as computers or mobile phones. I hope they'll be able to prosper without foreign countries exploiting their resources and leave the locals with nothing but wars, diseases and forced migration abroad.

We need to bump this up so people pay more attention to this than the slavic civil war

This is the side note of side notes, but if you haven't engaged much with Congolese music, then know this: You're missing out!

Imagine you are carrying a stash of dollars in a clear polythene paper across town. That's the situation of any country that has resources but doesn't have proper institutions or a standing army to protect those resources. The worst thing that can happen to any poor country is to have natural resources

Here is what you did not say: M23 are not Rwandan; they are Congolese whose grievances should be addressed by the Congolese government. The blame game by the ineffective Congolese government will not yield any positive results.

Hello thanks for the video. However you’ve wrongly used the flag of old Republic of Zaïre at 2:45

Finally this news reporter is even telling us the influence of the west to congo

Had the DRC ever improved? It is always something negative.

the problem is south africa has reduced its role as an african regional super power because the ANC hates bad publicity, a few problems in CAR and we called it quits, south africa can send its army to unstable countries and state build while funding that state building with mineral resources… this is something that has caused chaos a lack of regional hegemony, someone needs to police everyone else

Find out who’s funding the fighting and there’s your answer for who to go after

I like the sprinkling of minecraft pictures where they're applicable, but in cases where it isn't like Tin and Coltan, real pictures would be preferable.

The african union should so something about it and stop blaming the west for chinese owned mines.

Such a shame for humanity that more deadly wars are often ignored. Free Congo and Ethiopia!

Sad😢

Very true