With the international spotlight on high-profile hotspots such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan's Darfur region, NGOs are increasingly concerned that conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be allowed to escalate unchecked, threatening to unravel the country's fragile peace process. Congo is struggling to recover from a five-year war that pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. More than three million people were killed either as a direct result of fighting or through hunger and disease.