Amnesty International 2003 report: Congo:
The Kinshasa-based government led by Joseph Kabila and backed by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe faced armed opposition on several fronts. The Ugandan-supported Mouvement de la libération du Congo (MLC), Movement for the Liberation of Congo, and its allies controlled the north while various factions of the Ugandan and Rwandese-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD), Rally for Congolese Democracy, controlled large swathes of the east. There was fighting between different RCD factions and with armed groups including the mayi-mayi, local armed groups generally opposed to RCD and Rwandese control.
In October a UN Panel of Experts reported that both allies and opponents of the government, including military commanders and political leaders from Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, were taking advantage of the conflict to loot the country's natural resources and to prolong the war.
More than three million people were estimated to have been killed or to have died as a result of the war to overthrow the DRC government which started in 1998.
Conditions in many detention centres were appalling. At least 46 prisoners were reported to have died between March and June 2002 in Kinshasa's main prison, the Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa (CPRK), Kinshasa Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre, previously known as Makala Prison. They reportedly died as a result of ill-treatment, lack of medical care and lack of food. |
