Due to operational reasons beyond RVI’s control, this year’s annual Field Courses will now be held in Entebbe, Uganda rather than Ethiopia. Entebbe was the location of the first Great Lakes Course in 2010. RVI is excited to be returning to Uganda, and looks forward to holding all three courses on the shores of Lake Victoria. Entebbe…

In the course of 2015, recruitment for certain factions of the Raia Mutomboki armed group intensified in the area of Bunyakiri, located in Kalehe territory in the province of South Kivu (Democratic Republic of the Congo). In this blog, Lebon Mulimbi suggests that the reasons for this recent upsurge in recruitment are primarily to be found in…

RVI is sad to announce the loss of our colleague Said Mohamed Dahir, who collapsed and died unexpectedly on 5 March 2016. Born in Hargeysa, Said’s childhood like many others of his generation was marked by civil war, which forced his family to flee their home in 1988 to Ethiopia. After the war Said was able to resume his studies to become one…

Vendredi 10 mai 2013 à 23 heures mourrait assassiné par balles Teso Ntarubibi, chef du village Chifunzi en groupement de Kalonge, territoire de Kalehe. L’infortuné était une des grandes personnalités de la famille royale Nakalonge régnant sur Kalonge. Son assassinat ne tardât pas à créer la panique dans le milieu. De centaines de familles…

La présence sur le sol congolais des Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda  (FDLR), un mouvement armé des combattants Hutu rwandais créée en 1999/2000, remonte à la période post-génocide au Rwanda après 1994. En République démocratique du Congo (Zaïre à l’époque), ces combattants commencèrent à se regrouper et à se réarmer dans les…

While refugees and the war in Syria have dominated the headlines this year, other conflicts continue to rumble on. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a recent count identified 70 armed groups in one province alone. Why are there so many and what is behind the fiendishly complex and endlessly shifting alliances and breakaway factions? A new…

There is tension in the air, here in the village of Luberizi in South Kivu. We return after having spent the night in nearby Luvungi, deemed safer. Our interlocutor tells us that members of an armed group from the adjacent mountains visited him the previous evening. They asked him what these bazungu (‘white people’ in Swahili) had come to talk…

The Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) in the University of Hargeisa, the Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Research and Capacity Building (CPSRCD) in Puntland State University and the Rift Valley Institute have embarked on two-year partnership to enable the two universities to build their capacity to deliver high quality research.…

The Rift Valley Institute’s annual field courses will be held in East Africa in June and July 2016. Course applications are now open. Taught by teams of leading regional and international specialists, the three courses—now in their thirteenth year—provide the basis for an understanding of current political and developmental challenges in the…

Visiter Misisi ne manque pas de frapper l’imagination et la curiosité. Mine artisanale d’or la plus populeuse du territoire de Fizi, au Sud-Kivu, Misisi grouille de monde. Bien que localement contestée, la société minière CASA Mining est localement présente depuis 2010. Elle mène ses activités d’exploration sur les collines surplombant Misisi,…