The Hutus and Tutsis are two rival central African ethnic groups. Although tension has existed between them for decades, the latest round of violence began in 1990, when the Tutsi-controlled Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), invaded Rwanda from its base in Uganda. Government forces initially repulsed the invasion, although skirmishes continued throughout the early 90's. In 1994 the joint assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi touched off a round of terror by the Hutu majority in Rwanda against the Tutsis. By 1995, the violence spilled across the border into the neighboring country of Zaire, as both Hutu and Tustis fled the Rwandan chaos.
In 1997, Laurent Kabila, seized control of Zaire renaming it the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since that time, his army, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDLC), has waged war against the Rwandan refugees in an effort to drive them from the country. Thousands have been killed in the ongoing guerrilla fighting throughout the Congo River basin. The epidemic which had decimated cattle population had only escalated the level of violence.
During the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, United Nations peacekeepers stepped back as Hutu extremists killed around 800,000 Tutsis, as well as moderate Hutu politicians. About 30% of the Twa population of Rwanda also died in the fighting.