Report Cites Heavy Toll of War in Congo

About 2.5 million people died in eastern Congo during the country’s 2 1/2-year civil war, an international humanitarian aid organization has reported.

The overwhelming majority of deaths were related to disease and malnutrition--products of a conflict that has ravaged the vast, mineral-rich country’s economy and health-care system--the New York-based International Rescue Committee said in a report published Tuesday.

“The loss of life is perhaps the worst in Africa in recent decades,” the group’s president, Reynold Levy, said in a statement issued in New York. “The magnitude of suffering is extraordinary.”

The report was based on a survey conducted by epidemiologist Les Roberts, the committee’s director, who updated and expanded a study conducted last year in eastern Congo.

The fighting has driven hundreds of thousands of people into the jungle, where they have had no access to food, medicine or shelter, the committee said. Aid groups have been unable to reach many war-affected areas.

About 350,000 deaths were directly attributed to violence. Roberts said one in eight households surveyed had experienced the violent death of a relative.

The conflict’s most dramatic affects have been on young children.

“In two districts, Moba and Kalemie, an estimated 75% of children born during this war have died or will die before their second birthday,” Roberts said.

Congo’s war started in 1998 when Rwanda and Uganda, acting with Congolese rebels, took up arms against then-President Laurent Kabila. Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia entered the conflict on Kabila’s side.

All sides signed a peace agreement in 1999 in Zambia, but all subsequently violated it. Peace efforts have moved forward since the Jan. 16 assassination of Kabila and the succession of his son Joseph.