4 million dead-Dec. 2004
The Congo war/conflicts/tragedy continues to extract a grim toll from Congolese civilians with hunger and disease causing most of the deaths.

Poll shows Congo war is world's top forgotten (and ignored) crisis
Describing the results of a recent Reuters poll of experts on which "forgotten" crises should be focused on by the media, Africa featured in the results with Congo, Uganda and Sudan topping.

The Western media is accused by experts "of routinely ignoring emergencies in countries of little geopolitical significance for big powers despite the enormous scale of suffering." A great point presented in this one sentence.


War poverty forces locals into sex trade with UN troops
This in itself is a major tragedy of the Congo war, however delving into the article one finds even more disturbing examples of how depraved the situation there is. Apparently many "Congolese tolerate the sex trade with the UN soldiers" because unlike the local militias the UN troops actually pay for their sex. War causes many horrible actions and the mass rape and kidnapping of women and girls is one of them.
Not content with having cheap sex with young girls, some UN soldiers have also been accused of rape. These poor women have suffered double tragedies, that of having to live in extreme poverty and turmoil because of the fighting and instability and then being forced by poverty to have sex with soldiers who are supposed to protect them, but who exploit them by paying them a dollar.