Portraits of Instability

Haunting images from the world's most fragile states.

BY ELIZABETH DICKINSON, ANNIE LOWREY, JOSHUA KEATING | JULY/AUG 2009

5. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Fatal neglect: The magnitude of crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is staggering. Some 45,000 people die every month, the International Rescue Committee estimates, putting the total dead since 1998 at 5.4 million -- more than in any conflict since World War II. All but 0.4 percent of the deaths come from preventable diseases and malnutrition -- a phenomenon that has arisen due to horrid conditions in displacement camps that lack infrastructure, basic supplies, and proper medical care. The displaced children seen here, in a camp in eastern Congo, are among the 1 million displaced from North Kivu province alone.

LIONEL HEALING/AFP/Getty Images

 

Elizabeth Dickinson is an assistant editor at FP.

Annie Lowrey is an assistant editor at FP.

Joshua Keating is deputy Web editor at FP.

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SAGHIR AHMED

12:29 AM ET

June 29, 2009

Pakistan No 10 Failed state

This is FALSE

this seems very funny for an average Pakistani like me that Pakistan is more failed state than Nigeria, Kenya, and stands near Iraq, Afghanistan etc. this is false and surely based of wrong perceptions. No Pakistani can believe it. Pakistan is still much better place than many countries present in the same list.

Saghir Ahmed
Islamabad

 
January/February 2010