Maniema

Maniema
country	Democratic Republic of Congo
Provincial capital	Kindu
governor	Koloso Sumaili
National language	Swahili
surface	132,250 km²
population	2,333,000 (2015)
Population density	17.6
ISO 3166-2	CD-MA

Maniema is a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the capital Kindu .

geography

The province is located in the east of the country and is bordered by the Tshopo Province to the north, the North and South Kivu provinces to the east, Tanganyika Province to the southeast , Lomami Province to the southwest and Sankuru Province to the west .

Maniema is divided into seven territories (Kibombo, Kasongo, Pangi, Punia, Lubutu, Wamaza and Kaïlo) with central places of the same name and the provincial capital Kindu. Kindu has 170,000 inhabitants (2008) and is the terminus of a railway line that connects the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the railway network of southern Africa.

The Lualaba Stream , the main source river of the Congo , flows south to north through Maniema and also crosses Kindu.

population

Swahili , the Bantu language of eastern Africa , is spoken in Maniema . The Lualaba is a (fuzzy) language boundary here; further west, especially in the Kasai provinces, the people speak Tshiluba (Luba-Kasai).

history

Maniema Province was created in 1988 when the former Kivu Province was divided. A province of Maniema was created in 1962 and existed until 1966.

Natural resources

The southern and eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are rich in natural resources . In Maniema there are tungsten , tantalum (in the form of the ore coltan ), tin and gold deposits .

War in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Desires for natural resources and the weakness of the central government in distant Kinshasa have led to armed conflicts that have raged in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1998. The armies of Rwanda and Uganda as well as several rebel groups are involved. A humanitarian catastrophe (murders, mass rapes, recruitment of child soldiers, marauding looting) has led to the collapse of all infrastructure. Health care does not exist, either materially or personally, and there are no longer any constitutional institutions. Three million people lost their lives in the Congo, 90% of them in the east of the country.

Since a transitional government with the involvement of rebel groups was formed in Kinshasa under international pressure in 2003, some hope for more stable conditions has also been germinating in Maniema. While war violations of human rights are still the order of the day in the neighboring provinces of North and South Kivu, Maniema is experiencing a tense calm, a situation between war and peace.