heads of the Great Lakes states and UN pledged in 2004 to abate tribal, rebel, and militia fighting in the region, including northeast Congo, where the UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), organized in 1999, maintains over 16,500 uniformed peacekeepers; members of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army forces continue to seek refuge in Congo's Garamba National Park as peace talks with the Uganda Government evolve; the location of the boundary in the broad Congo River with the Republic of the Congo is indefinite except in the Pool Malebo/Stanley Pool area; Uganda and DRC dispute Rukwanzi Island in Lake Albert and other areas on the Semliki River with hydrocarbon potential; boundary commission continues discussions over Congolese-administered triangle of land on the right bank of the Lunkinda River claimed by Zambia near the DRC village of Pweto; DRC accuses Angola of shifting monuments
Democratic Republic of Congo accuses Angola of shifting monuments
Illicit drugs
traffickers exploit lax shipping controls to transit pseudoephedrine through the capital; while rampant corruption and inadequate supervision leave the banking system vulnerable to money laundering, the lack of a well-developed financial system limits the country's utility as a money-laundering center
used as a transshipment point for cocaine destined for Western Europe and other African states, particularly South Africa
Refugees and internally displaced persons
refugees (country of origin): 213,329 (Rwanda) (refugees and asylum seekers), 206,346 (Central African Republic), 55,819 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 42,725 (Burundi) (2021)
IDPs: 5.268 million (fighting between government forces and rebels since mid-1990s; conflict in Kasai region since 2016) (2020)
refugees (country of origin): 37,434 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 9,274 (Guinea), 6,357 (Cote d'Ivoire), 5,725 (Mauritania) (2021)
