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Zaire Population Distribution
Because of its large land area, Zaire as a whole is not
overpopulated, but population distribution is uneven, and
some
regions are very densely populated. Although most of
Zaire's land
area is habitable, more than half of the country is still
thinly
populated, and some 10 percent almost totally uninhabited.
Twothirds of the population is estimated to live on
one-quarter of the
land area.
The population is least dense throughout the nation's
center,
in the Congo River basin. Two areas with relatively high
densities
(greater than twenty-five inhabitants per square
kilometer) are
found along the eastern border north of Lake Tanganyika
and from
Bas-Zaïre in the southwest intermittently throughout the
southern
savanna to Kasai-Oriental. The greater-than-average
population
density in the eastern highlands can be related to the
superior
soils and rainfall there, but no obvious natural reason
accounts
for the greater density of the southern savanna.
Average population density throughout Zaire was
relatively low
at 14.9 persons per square kilometer in 1990, but regional
distribution was uneven (see
table 5, Appendix). Kinshasa
was by
far the most densely populated region in the country
(266.3
inhabitants per square kilometer in 1984), followed by
Bas-Zaïre
(36.5 inhabitants per square kilometer) and Kivu (since
the early
1990s divided into Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, and Maniema; 20.2
inhabitants per square kilometer overall--however,
Nord-Kivu and
Sud-Kivu are very densely populated, but Maniema is
sparsely
populated). Shaba was the least densely populated (7.8
inhabitants
per square kilometer), exceeded only slightly, however, by
Équateur
and Haut-Zaïre (both 8.4 inhabitants per square kilometer
in 1984).
In consonance with the high average annual growth rate
of the
total population, adjusted data from the five official
censuses
(1938, 1948, 1958, 1970, and 1984) clearly show a high
rate of
population increase in all regions after 1948. There are,
nevertheless, substantial regional variations (see
table 6,
Appendix).
Internal migration to the capital city of Kinshasa has
caused
a spectacular rate of population growth for that area
since 1938.
Although the growth rate is declining, it measured 6.2
percent for
the 1970-84 period. Growth rates in Kivu, Shaba, and
Kasai-Oriental
were also higher than the national average (i.e., over 3
percent)
in the same period.
Immigration also accounts for some of the discrepancies
in
regional increases in population at various times. For
example,
refugees from the 1961 Angolan anticolonial struggle
flooded parts
of Bas-Zaïre between 1958 and 1970, swelling statistics.
Substantial numbers of refugees from what are now Rwanda
and
Burundi fled to Kivu, first under Belgian colonial rule in
the
1927-45 and 1949-55 periods, and later in response to
domestic
political unrest in the 1960s, in the 1970s, and in the
early
1990s. Political unrest was also the major factor behind
the entry
of Sudanese and Ugandans into Haut-Zaïre in 1970 and 1984.
In Shaba
the rising growth rate from 1958 to 1970 can be attributed
to both
foreign immigration and internal migration, particularly
from
Kasai-Oriental to Shaba's thriving mining centers.
In the early 1990s, Zaire had to contend with an
increasingly
large population of internally displaced persons, the
victims of
ethnic conflict
(see The
Significance of Ethnic Identification
, this ch.;
Interest
Groups
, ch. 4). In 1992-93 several
hundred
thousand Luba-Kasai residing in Shaba (many whose families
had been
there for three to four generations) were forced from
their homes
and businesses. Most sought refuge in and around train
stations
(many literally living on station platforms), awaiting
transport to
the Kasai area. Because of their lack of funds and the
unreliability of the country's dilapidated rail system,
many never
made it out of Shaba, and in mid-1993 there were reported
to be
100,000 refugees trying to leave the region. There were
also about
100,000 refugees in Kasai-Occidental and Kasai-Oriental
who had
succeeded in leaving Shaba but were awaiting resettlement
in the
"homeland" that many had never before visited.
In addition, densely populated Nord-Kivu had over
150,000
internal refugees displaced by violence against the
so-called
Banyarwanda, members of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups
originally
from Rwanda and Burundi who had immigrated to Zaire over
the years.
Indigenous local groups, traditionally hunters, were
locked in a
struggle over land use with the more prosperous
Banyarwanda, who
were primarily farmers. The Banyarwanda, although
numbering about
2 million and constituting about one-half the population
of NordKivu , were still widely regarded as "foreigners," and many
of them
had in fact been deprived of citizenship by a 1981 law
that was
finally invoked in 1991. Thus, they made convenient
targets.
Attacks began in March 1993; by August 1993, they had
resulted in
the deaths of over 7,000 Banyarwanda and the displacement
of
150,000 people from both sides of the conflict.
The Zairian government is unable to deal with the
social and
health care needs of the displaced. Church groups and
international
organizations are in essence the only agencies delivering
health
care and other assistance to these internal refugees. Yet
even
their efforts are hampered by the near total collapse of
the
country's infrastructure, continuing corruption at all
levels of
officialdom, and widespread lawlessness and civil unrest.
Data as of December 1993
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