| |||||
| Decades: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See also: | Other events of 2009 History of the DRC | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 2009 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .
| |||||
| Decades: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See also: | Other events of 2009 History of the DRC | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 2009 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo .
The Child Protection Law of 2009 sets the minimum age for full-time work at 18, unless a parent consents. With parental consent, minors 15–18 may work, but no more than four hours a day. Children are barred from carrying heavy objects. This law is widely unenforced. Approximately 42% of children aged 5–14 were affected by child labor or even forced labor [1]
January 6: Chief of Staff Bosco Ntaganda takes control of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and its founder, Laurent Nkunda, is arrested by the government of Rwanda. UN peacekeepers report unsettled conditions in Kirolirwe, Masisi, and Kiwanja, Rutshuru, due to CNDP, PARECO and various Mai-Mai militias.[ citation needed ]
January 20: The Congolese government allies with the Rwandan government against rebel forces. [2]
February 16: The government of the DRC announces an end of the Ebola epidemic in the Mweka and Luebo health zones that had been ongoing since February 2008. [3]
December 11: The IMF approves a loan of over $500 million to the Congolese government to help combat poverty and other issues plaguing the country. [4]
December 22: The Belgian government donates €2 million in relief to help conserve endangered UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the DRC. [5]
The earliest known human settlements in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been dated back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 90,000 years ago. The first real states, such as the Kongo, the Lunda, the Luba and Kuba, appeared south of the equatorial forest on the savannah from the 14th century onwards.
The economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has declined drastically around the 1980s, despite being home to vast potential in natural resources and mineral wealth; their gross domestic product is $69.474 billion as of 2023.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as Congo-Kinshasa, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, the DRC is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 112 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous officially Francophone country in the world. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, the Cabinda exclave of Angola and the South Atlantic Ocean.
North Kivu is a province bordering Lake Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Goma.
The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda is an armed rebel group active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As an ethnic Hutu group opposed to the ethnic Tutsi influence, the FDLR is one of the last factions of Rwandan rebels active in the Congo. It was founded through an amalgamation of other groups of Rwandan refugees in September 2000, including the former Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR), under the leadership of Paul Rwarakabije. It was active during the latter phases of the Second Congo War and the subsequent insurgencies in Kivu.
The mining industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo produces copper, diamonds, tantalum, tin, gold, and more than 63% of global cobalt production. Minerals and petroleum are central to the DRC's economy, making up more than 95% of the value of its exports.
The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed conflicts in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo which have occurred since the end of the Second Congo War. Including neighboring Ituri province, there are more than 120 different armed groups active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently, some of the most active rebel groups include the Allied Democratic Forces, the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo, the March 23 Movement, and many local Mai Mai militias. In addition to rebel groups and the governmental FARDC troops, a number of national and international organizations have intervened militarily in the conflict, including the United Nations force known as MONUSCO, and an East African Community regional force.
Bosco Ntaganda is a convicted war criminal and the former military chief of staff of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), an armed militia group operating in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He is a former member of the Rwandan Patriotic Army and allegedly a former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC), the military wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots.
The 2008 Nord-Kivu campaign was an armed conflict in the eastern Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The upsurge of violence in the Kivu conflict saw heavy battles between the Democratic Republic of Congo's army, supported by the United Nations, and Tutsi militia under General Laurent Nkunda.
The National Congress for the Defence of the People is a political armed militia established by Laurent Nkunda in the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in December 2006. The CNDP was engaged in the Kivu conflict, an armed conflict against the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In January 2009, the CNDP split and Nkunda was arrested by the Rwanda government. The remaining CNDP splinter faction, led by Bosco Ntaganda, was planned to be integrated into the national army.
Laurent Nkunda is a former General in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is the former warlord operating in the province of Nord-Kivu, sympathetic to Congolese Tutsis and the Tutsi-dominated government of neighbouring Rwanda. Nkunda, who is himself a Congolese Tutsi, commanded the former DRC troops of the 81st and 83rd Brigades of the DRC Army. He speaks English, French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Lingala and Kinande. On January 22, 2009, he was put under house arrest in Gisenyi when he was called for a meeting to plan a joint operation between the Congolese and Rwandan militaries.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the east of the country in particular, has been described as the "Rape Capital of the World", and the prevalence and intensity of all forms of sexual violence has been described as the worst in the world. Human Rights Watch defines sexual violence as "an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion", and rape as "a form of sexual violence during which the body of a person is invaded, resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim, with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or other part of the body."
John Numbi was a Congolese security officer and retainer of Joseph Kabila, who rose to the rank of General. Until January 2010, he was the Inspector General of the Congolese National Police. In 2018 he was appointed as the Inspector General of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC). He was replaced in that role in 2020, and fled the DR Congo after Joseph Kabila's power dwindled in the first quarter of 2021.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have maintained diplomatic relations since 1961 and contacts between the two regions stretch back to 1887 when representatives of the Congo Free State established contacts with the court of the Qing dynasty. The first treaty between the two powers was signed in 1898.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution. The majority of this trafficking is internal, and much of it is perpetrated by armed groups and government forces outside government control within the DRC's unstable eastern provinces.
Canada–Democratic Republic of the Congo relations are the bilateral relations between Canada and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Canada has an embassy in Kinshasa and D.R. Congo has an embassy in Ottawa.
The March 23 Movement, often abbreviated as M23 and also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army, is a rebel military group that is for the most part formed of ethnic Tutsi. Based in eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), it operates mainly in the province of North Kivu. The M23 rebellion of 2012 to 2013 against the DRC government led to the displacement of large numbers of people. On 20 November 2012, M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of a million people, but it was requested to evacuate it by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region because the DRC government had finally agreed to negotiate. In late 2012, Congolese troops, along with UN troops, retook control of Goma, and M23 announced a ceasefire and said that it wanted to resume peace talks.
The following lists events that happened during 2012 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Kivu Ebola epidemic was an outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) mainly in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and in other parts of Central Africa, from 2018 to 2020. Between 1 August 2018 and 25 June 2020 it resulted in 3,470 reported cases. The Kivu outbreak also affected Ituri Province, whose first case was confirmed on 13 August 2018. In November 2018, the outbreak became the biggest Ebola outbreak in the DRC's history, and had become the second-largest Ebola outbreak in recorded history worldwide, behind only the 2013–2016 Western Africa epidemic. In June 2019, the virus reached Uganda, having infected a 5-year-old Congolese boy who entered Uganda with his family, but was contained.
The Lueshe mine, or Lweshe mine, is a niobium mine located in Rutshuru Territory in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The site is one of the most economically significant pyrochlore deposits in the world. The rare niobium mineral lueshite was discovered at the mine, and is named after it. The mine is frequently caught up in violence surrounding the Kivu conflict.
