structural:expansion
The Second DR Congo War, also known as Africa's World War, the Great War of Africa, or the Great African War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 2 August 1998, just over a year after the First Congo War, and involved some of the same issues. It began when Congolese president Laurent-Désiré Kabila turned against his Rwandan and Ugandan allies who had helped him come to power.

Eventually involving belligerents from across the African continent, the war officially ended on 18 July 2003 when the Transitional Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo took power. Although a peace agreement was signed in 2002, violence has continued in many regions of the country, especially in the east. Hostilities have continued since in the ongoing Lord's Resistance Army insurgency, and the Kivu and Ituri conflicts. Nine African countries and around twenty-five armed groups became involved in the war.

In 2008, the International Rescue Committee estimated that the war and its aftermath had caused 5.4 million deaths, principally through disease and malnutrition, making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II, though this number has come under scrutiny, with some researchers saying that many of the deaths would have occurred without the conflict. Another 2 million were displaced from their homes or sought asylum in neighboring countries. Conflict minerals were a major source of funding for the war, and for subsequent fighting.