Since August 2018, the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been experiencing an epidemic of Ebola: the second most lethal in history and the first in a wartime situation. It has already killed over 2300 people and infected over 3400. This Ebola epidemic has caused the highest number of children infected and killed in history: over 30% of those affected are under the age of 18, and this “massacre of the innocents” shows no signs of coming to an end. This report aims to raise awareness among the public, especially at a time like this, in which the coronavirus is all over the front pages, and that it might make people reflect on the fact that there are other viruses in the world that are just as lethal – or in the case of Ebola, much more so - even if we are not directly affected by them.

A severe humanitarian crisis is under way in the Lake Chad basin. Over two million refugees, five million people at risk of food insecurity and 500,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition. Two factors have caused 'the world’s most complex humanitarian disaster'': the desertification of the Lake, which in the last 50 years has lost 90% of its surface, and the terrorism of Boko Haram. The feature illustrates this crisis, showing the reality experienced by the population along the shores of the lakes. It focuses on life in the refugee camps, where thousands of people are clinging to life, without no possessions whatsoever; it then moves deeper in to tell the story of the Boko Haram terrorist group, through an encounter with former members, and in particular with Halima Adama, a kamikaze who survived a suicide attack she carried out herself.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is an area marked by lethal conflict, where war has killed over six million people since 1945. It is the richest country in the world in terms of resources, yet its people are among the poorest on the planet. The Congo has been violently exploited, and has been supplying all kinds of raw materials since the days of Leopold II of Belgium. In exchange, it has received little but war, corruption, death, disease, hunger, mercenaries, child soldiers and rape. Rape, sexual violence, abuse of women: this is the tragedy within the tragedy of this African country, for which there appears to be no way out. Every year, 15,000 women are raped: an average of 2 an hour. Sexual violence in the Congo remains first and foremost a weapon of war, and is the darkest of the horrors in this African heart of darkness.