Inside Congo, An Unspeakable Toll

Inside Congo, An Unspeakable Toll: "But has Congo -- nominally at peace since a truce in 2002 ended its eight-year civil war, but still suffering spasms of violence -- ever occupied its rightful place on that list? Has the scale of the tragedy engulfing the Congolese people received proper attention? The answer, sadly, is no. Ignorance of the calamity occurring in Congo remains almost universal, even though the numbers that reflect it -- particularly the key indicator 'excess mortality,' the number of deaths above normal levels -- are staggering.

The International Rescue Committee, which has been providing humanitarian assistance in Congo since 1996, conducted four mortality surveys in the country between 2000 and 2004. We found that in the most affected zones, the mortality rate over the years covered by our studies (1998 to 2004) exceeded the 'normal' rate for sub-Saharan Africa by nearly 4 million people. This makes the crisis in Congo the deadliest anywhere since the end of World War II, dwarfing Bosnia, Kosovo, Darfur and even the South Asian tsunami. Yet for the most part, these deaths have gone all but unnoticed.

Perhaps this is because of the nature of the dying. In an era of instant news cycles, more attention is paid to those who die violently than to those who die of disease. In our most recent Congo survey, only 2 percent of the deaths"