YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has delivered an address highlighting the ongoing conflict in the eastern DRC, often referred to as the “African world wars.”

The leading African cardinal was speaking at the start of the International Meeting for Peace that took place in Paris from September 23-September 24, organized by the Rome-based Community of Sant’Egidio.

Ambongo said that the sheer scale of the war – its duration and the destruction it has wrought on the DRC – should have made it to the headlines of the global media, but that hasn’t happened.

“We live in an age of wars all over the world. A quick calculation shows that there are currently between 25 and 30 wars or conflict zones in the world, at least a third of which are in Africa,” the Archbishop of Kinshasa said.

“In the Democratic Republic of Congo in particular, we are experiencing a terrible 30-year conflict in the eastern part of the country. This conflict of vast proportions involves several armed groups and threatens to infect neighboring countries and other regional and international actors, which has led to the wars in the DRC being defined as ‘African world wars’,” said Ambongo who is also the President of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

He accused the international press of perceiving the Congolese conflict as “a secondary crisis compared to other situations.”

The cardinal said there is a common thread linking all wars, but insisted that the DRC’s war remains the world’s deadliest, having killed over 4 million people and displaced more than 6 million others.

“This is the highest number in the world of people forced to leave their homes within their own country, “he said.

He said the duration of the war, which has lasted more than three decades means, that there are generations of Congolese people who have grown up but have never known a single day of peace.

“War has become part of the landscape in the eastern part of the country and people have become accustomed to a life of war,” Ambongo said.

More than 120 armed groups are fighting in the east of the DRC, some propped up by neighboring countries, particularly Rwanda, that has been supporting the M23 rebel movement.

The deputy Secretary General of the DRC Bishops’ Conference, Father George Kalenga, accused Congo’s neighbors of offering “back-up bases to armed groups that sow desolation on a recurring basis in certain areas of the DR Congo.”

“These countries enable the illegal exploitation of the DR Congo’s natural resources by multinational corporations that have established their headquarters in neighboring nations,” Kalenga told Crux.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is incredibly rich in natural resources, with its mineral wealth estimated to be worth around $24 trillion. This vast wealth includes valuable minerals such as gold, diamonds, coltan, cobalt, and tin, among others.

Ambongo said it is the struggle for the control of these minerals that is driving the war in the DRC, and noted that it is a distortion of facts to view the conflict as based on ethnicity or tribalism.

“Of course, language is often manipulated in such a way as to push people’s minds and feelings towards hatred and conflict,” the cardinal said.

“We should not forget that for years a real ‘war economy’ has been developing in the east of the DRC for the benefit of a small number of warlords and at the expense of the local population,” he said.

He said the war has become a business and explained that the militias are paying the salaries of an entire generation of unemployed youth, including children.

“It is therefore no coincidence that primary schools in North Kivu province have become military targets in order to force children not to dream of a future other than war,” Ambongo said.

The cardinal underscored the need to reimagine peace, despite the rather challenging context. He said peace can only return if there is a collective will to work for peace.

“Through our own choices, each of us has the ability to change what seems inexorable, like war, into a possibility for peace,” he said.

He also explained that for peace to be built, the voices of the victims must be listened to, and the narrative must change by “giving priority to the reasons for peace over the disasters of war.”