Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/AFP/Getty Images Children wash copper on
July 9, 2010 at an open-air mine in Kamatanda in the rich mining
province of Katanga, southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC). Forced by poverty, hundreds of students leave school to
work at the mine. Children wash copper on July 9, 2010 at an
open-air mine in Kamatanda in the rich mining province of
Katanga, southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Forced
by poverty, hundreds of students leave school to work at the
mine. Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/AFP/Getty Images James North has
reported from Africa, Asia and Latin America for thirty-seven
years. The 73 million human beings who live here in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to struggle through
one of the greatest humanitarian disasters on the planet since
the end of the Second World War. By one estimate, more than 5
million people have died since the Second Congo War broke out in
1998. Fighting has just started up again in eastern Congo;
hundreds are already dead, and there