Barely a year after helping install Laurent Kabila in power, former allies Rwanda and Uganda backed a rebellion against him, opening a conflict that would eventually draw in nine African nations. Often called "Africa's World War," the fighting and its associated humanitarian crisis killed an estimated five million people through violence, disease, and displacement by the time it wound down.
The war's roots lay in the unfinished business of the 1994 Rwandan genocide: Hutu militias had fled into eastern Zaire (soon renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo), and Rwanda's new Tutsi-led government wanted them eliminated. Kabila, once Rwanda's chosen client, began resisting Rwandan influence and expelled foreign military advisers, prompting Kigali and Kampala to back a new rebel movement.
Within weeks, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, and Chad sent troops to prop up Kabila, while Rwanda and Uganda armed rival rebel factions — sometimes rebels who later fought each other. The war fractured into a mosaic of shifting alliances and proxy militias fighting over Congo's staggering mineral wealth: gold, diamonds, and especially the coltan used in mobile phones and laptops worldwide.
Formal peace agreements came in 2002 and 2003, but eastern Congo has never fully stabilized, and armed groups descended from that war's factions still operate in the region today.
Key people: Laurent Kabila, Paul Kagame, Yoweri Museveni