The private security companies protecting China's interests abroad.
Illustration by Sam Ward
Night had fallen in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu province. It was late November, and the air was sticky even after the sun had set.
Breathtaking amounts of gold sit just beneath the surface of South Kivu’s muddy slopes, which rub up against the border with Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania. But above ground, violence from warring militias plague the province, with thousands of murders and abductions occuring over the last five years.
That November nigh
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