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 | | From 2002 until 2004, about two thousand civilians were killed and tens of thousands displaced in the battle for one of the most important mining areas, Mongbwalu — this as militants sought to enrich themselves from gold, the profits from which also financed their war effort. |
 | | Ethnically-motivated killings, torture and rape were also reported in the scramble for reserves of the ore. Human Rights Watch (HRW) describes the militias, the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) and the Union of Congolese Patriots, as being "proxies" for Uganda and Rwanda, which occupied Congo-Kinshasa during the country’s five-year civil war (1998 to 2003). |
 | | Investigations by the United Nations have found that Uganda and Rwanda were themselves guilty of illegal resource exploitation in the DRC during the war, in which they backed various rebel groups. |
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