NewsTracker Answers for week of Feb. 03, 2025

Q: A rebel militia has seized Goma, a Democratic Republic of Congo city near its eastern border with Rwanda, leaving about 2 million people desperately struggling to find enough water and food to survive. Where is the Democratic Republic of Congo, the second-largest nation by area in Africa?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Rebels control much of the mineral-rich territory of eastern Congo. Which Europeans exploited Congo and its people to extract great wealth from natural resources?

A. Belgians

B. British

C. French

D. Germans

A. Belgium’s King Leopold II ruled the country as his private property from 1885 to 1908. He amassed a huge fortune from extracting natural resources, especially rubber for the world’s growing auto industry. It is estimated that half of Congo’s people died from violence and disease before the Belgian government took over the area as a regular colony.

Q: The country has suffered decades of dictatorship and violent power struggles since gaining independence in 1960. Most of its 115 million people are among the poorest in the world, but its mineral wealth is estimated at ...

A. $24 billion

B. $240 billion

C. $2.4 trillion

D. $24 trillion

D. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates Congo mineral deposits to be worth $24 trillion, many of them crucial to global technology. Natural resources include cobalt, copper, niobium, tantalum, petroleum, diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, uranium, coal, hydropower, and timber.

Q: Congo’s government and more than 100 rebel groups compete to control those natural resources. The group that took Goma is the strongest rebel group with an estimated 6,000 troops backed up by 4,000 soldiers from which neighboring nation?

A. Burundi

B. Central African Republic

C. Rwanda

D. Uganda

C. Rwandan troops entered eastern Congo in 1996 to battle fighters who fled across the border after the Rwandan Civil War and genocide. After that ethnic fighting, Rwanda backed various Congolese rebels including the group that captured Goma, which said it intends to take over all of the country.

Q: Democratic Republic of Congo is the fourth-poorest nation in the world, according to the CIA World Factbook. Which of is neighbors is ranked as the poorest nation?

A. Burundi

B. Central African Republic

C. Rwanda

D. Uganda

A. Burundi has a gross domestic product (GDP) per person of only $800 a year. Central African Republic is second-poorest at $1,100, and that figure is $1,500 in Congo. By comparison, GDP per person is $74,600 a year in the United States and $132,800 in Luxembourg.