Widespread killing, rape, disease and war make Democratic Republic of Congo hell on earth

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It is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman – or a Christian. Disease is rampant, and children as young as 4 are being forced to work in mines.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is 95% Christian, yet the faithful are being targeted by jihadists. Just last month, Islamist ADF terrorists, who want the eastern part of the country to become a Muslim Caliphate, rounded up 70 Christians and beheaded them – in a church.

Women are under threat too. According to the U.N., 895 cases of rape were reported in the last two weeks of February alone – an average of more than 60 a day.

In the east, “Sexual violence and human rights abuses remain rampant, as is the looting and destruction of civilian homes and businesses,” Patrick Eba, deputy director of UNHCR’s Division of International Protection, said this week.

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The facade of a church hit by an artillery shell following clashes in Goma on Jan. 30, 2025. M23’s capture of most of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, is a dramatic escalation of a decade-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images)

Eba added that “hundreds of thousands of people (are) on the move”, fleeing the violence, with many crossing into neighboring countries.

Over 150 women inmates were raped, and many of them then burned to death, in Goma in October last year. As M23 rebels advanced on the city, prison guards at the local jail fled. Hundreds of male inmates are said to have jumped over a wall and raped the women, before escaping.

The sick are also at risk. Earlier this week, the U.N. humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) reported that armed men had raided at least two hospitals in North Kivu’s capital Goma, abducting dozens of patients. 

Disease also stalks people – with three mystery “outbreaks” in the past six months in the DRC. In the latest, the World Health Organization stated late last month that 60 have died and a further 1,318 have shown symptoms of suffering from an as yet unidentified serious illness in Equateur Province.

Internally displaced civilians from the camps in Munigi and Kibati carry their belongings as they flee following the fight between M23 rebels and the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Goma, on Jan. 26, 2025. (Reuters/Aubin Mukoni)

The agency said the disease spreads through the body fast “with a median time from onset of symptoms to death of one day.” Tests for Ebola and the Marburg virus have come back negative so far.

In the Eastern Kivu provinces of the DRC, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, as rebel groups, often foreign-backed, push back government troops in a war “playing out in one of the poorest regions of earth,” analyst Frans Cronje told Fox News Digital, adding, “Thousands have been killed, disease pandemics are commonplace, (and) women live under the constant fear of rape and abuse.” 

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Boys working at a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. (ILO/UNICEF)

“The conflict in the DRC is essentially about control of critical minerals”, Cronje, an advisor for the Yorktown Foundation for Freedom, continued. “Scores of rebel groups and some state actors are engaged in the conflict. The two Kivu provinces contain vast deposits of these minerals that could be used in applications from defense and AI to green energy.”

Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and editor of the Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital, “I would argue that the minerals are only partially, or even tangentially, related. The main violence plaguing Congo runs from regional political issues, like Rwanda/M23 (rebel group), to ethnic like CODECO, (an association of militia groups) to religious, like Islamic State Central Africa Province, aka ADF, (rebel group) to just general localized banditry. And some groups do control and make money from artisanal mines, but not all.”

And, for more than a decade, children in some DRC areas have faced extreme exploitation and abuse, reportedly from China, forced to mine deep underground in its quest for metals such as cobalt. An estimated 70% of the world’s cobalt is produced in the DRC, according to Michigan State University’s Global Edge Research Organization. China is said to either own, or co-own with the DRC’s government, 80% of the DRC’s cobalt mines.

Red Cross workers clear the area in Bukavu, east Congo’s second-largest city, one day after it was taken by M23 rebels, on Feb. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Janvier Barhahiga)

This modern-day child slavery continues despite outcry. A report to a joint House and Senate Committee in November 2023 stated that the DRC “is a country that has been brutally pillaged throughout history, fueled by corrupt men’s unquenchable thirst for power, riches, land, rubber, copper, palm oil, and now cobalt, all at the expense of innocent women, men, and children.” 

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“Children as young as 4 are forced to mine cobalt, “Jason Isaac told Fox News Digital last year. Isaac is the founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute. 

The FDD’s Bill Roggio told Fox News Digital there are steps the Trump administration could take, “from counter-terrorism against one of IS’ most active global branches (ISCAP) to walking back a potential massive regional war, or even to improving good governance, a more stable, secure and prosperous Congo would do wonders for the global economy and regional security.”

Paul Tilsley is a veteran correspondent who has reported on African affairs for more than three decades from Johannesburg, South Africa. He can be followed on Twitter @paultilsley