Photographs by Marcus Bleasdale/VII for Newsweek
Eastern Congo's riches should have been a blessing, but instead they have been a curse. The gold, diamonds, tin and coltan mined there and smuggled out through Rwanda have funded a series of devastating civil wars, resulting in the slaughter of nearly 6 million people in the last decade. A delicate ceasefire has so far kept rebels from closing in on the province's capital city of Goma, but the conflict shows no signs of a letup. The United Nation’s 17,000 troops-its largest peacekeeping force ever-were unable to prevent a rampage of rape and looting. Additional forces are set to join them, but their numbers pale in comparison to the estimated 100,000 soldiers needed for any real impact. Some say the most promising idea is a ban on minerals from militia-held areas, but even that may not be enough. "If there were something easy that could fix the Congo, it would have been done," says Anneke von Woudenberg of Human Rights Watch. "There’s no magic bullet." Here, award-winning photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale's images of the conflict's toll.
