North Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, has spent decades near the center of one of Africa’s most stubborn conflict zones. Its mix of fertile land, mineral wealth, and a dense patchwork of ethnic communities has made it fertile ground for competing armed groups, many with roots tracing back to the regional wars of the 1990s.
Successive waves of militia activity, cross-border spillover from neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, and repeated failures of disarmament efforts have left much of the province in a near-permanent state of low-level war, punctuated by periods of more intense fighting. Crisis Insights continues to follow developments there as one of the clearest illustrations of how local grievances and regional geopolitics can reinforce each other over time.