A year ago, small-scale fighting erupted in the DRC's south-central Kasai region. This isn't encouraging:
A year later, the once opaque clash has spread and expanded. Officials with the UN's Congo peacekeeping operation are calling the chaos in Kasai Congo's and central Africa's most dangerous conflict.
Death toll estimates range from 3,000 to 6,000, but investigators discover new mass graves with mutilated bodies on a daily basis.
The DRC president refuses to step down and gives all appearances of holding on to power using the security services he controls.
So mass killings could renew in a region that gets little international media attention. But the people will be just as dead for dying in darkness.