On an extended weekend in late July 2010, fighters of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and elements of the Mai Mai, a local militia, entered Luvungi and surrounding villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and raped more than 260 women and children, including a number of baby boys.

They then looted the area and moved on.

This is war

It is unfathomable and yet it represents a tiny fraction of the horrors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• Five million deaths are attributable to the continuing conflict;

• hundreds of thousands have been raped;

• more than three million are internally displaced;

• more than four million children are orphaned

Contemporary war is largely unofficial, unacknowledged and undeclared.

Flags and bugles don’t herald its approach.

The march to war is replaced by the disintegration of order and the hellish descent into violence.

Since 1987, Project Ploughshares has been tracking global armed conflicts
and issuing an annual Armed Conflicts Report

With 23 years of monitoring wars, we now have enough data to add to our collective understanding of the nature, costs and roots of modern warfare.

What our research has demonstrated is that any attempt to break the cycle of war and alleviate the suffering of human beings cannot be a military exercise alone. It must include attention to and funding for: development, democracy, disarmament, diplomacy as well as defence. What we call the 5Ds.

We are working to break the cycle of war by pushing for policies that approach human security more comprehensively and thereby ensure a solid chance at peace.

Learn more about the Armed Conflicts Report

Learn more about our approach to human security

photo: Marie Frechon/UN