President Makes First Visit to East After War
Congolese President Joseph Kabila visited the former rebel-held east in a trip intended to show that the country was reuniting after years of war.
Kabila’s long-awaited trip to Kisangani, a trading town on the Congo River that was the scene of some of the war’s bloodiest fighting, was the first by a Congolese president in 14 years. “My presence here is a real sign that the country has been reunified,” he told a crowd of 10,000.
Kabila heads a transitional government set up in 2003 to lead Congo to elections next year after a five-year war that killed 3 million people, mostly from hunger and disease.
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