The war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formely Zaire, which went on in the late nineties and involved several African countries and the ensuing conflicts and upheavals since have approximately accounted for four million lives. This is the spectacular but credible claim made by the English medicine journal, the Lancet. This article on Zmag details some of the fighting and the reasons behind them in the Congo, involving foreign countries, American former top-level government officials and multinational corporation.
The article is very detailed especially in describing the various resources found in the DRC in which many countries and corporations have vested interests in.