Link to article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/9/dozens-dead-after-suspected-militia-raid-in-eastern-congo
Dozens of people have been reported missing or killed in the easter region of the DRC. The report said that a group of armed men raided a mining camp in the Ituri region of the DRC. The reports the raid turned deadly but no official report of deaths has been posted yet. Officials apart from the DRC army reported after the news saying they will be working around the clock to eliminate the armed groups. Some leaders in the region have estimated that casualties are between 30-50 people. The blame is being put on CODECO , a militia group that has a reputation for attacking such civilian camps like the one in the report. This is just one of numerous attacks in the hostile easter province of the DRC and other groups like ISIS are habitually disputing territory in that region.
My take on this article is that this attack is a trend of attacks that will continue to happen in the eastern province of the DRC. With large amounts of rare earth metals, little regulation, and little government presence, corruption and violence has exploded. With any amount of wealth that is up for the taking in a low income region, people will lie, cheat and kill their way to the top. This violence and corruption from the mass wealth is enhanced by other factors as well. The new demand for the resources from outside markets like China has made these mining ventures extremely profitable and for someone who is food insecure this opportunity is too good to pass up. The other factor is the limited government outreach. With the geography of the country separating it into two parts makes controlling the region exceedingly difficult. Combined with other social cleavages and being in a shatter belt the future looks bleak and violence looks like in this region.
This topic relates back to class with ideas of social cleavages. The DRC is separated by many different social cleavages that makes it a poorly run state. Factors such as geography, ethnicity, and government all play key roles in why violence is so prevalent in the DRC. First off the country is a part of a shatterbelt making stability quite hard to achieve in of itself. Other factors like ehtinc unity cause issues because there is a wide spread of different ethnicities across the DRC. These people are all divided by geography, social classes, and religion. These factors make unity an issue and cause outbreak of violence as certain group;s see themselves as independent causing violence as the Government sits on the western edge of the country doing nothing. These factors combined with its history make the DRC a unstable country.