Inside Congo

The forests and backwaters of Congo, and the world they hide within them, have long fascinated those with a passion for the unknown. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's 1902 classic novella on the horrors of colonialism, Congo's intricate geography acts as a metaphor for the recesses of the human mind--as if in the folds and bends of Africa's landscape we can find meaning behind our hidden desires and nightmares. In such a vast and foreign place, though, even the most plainspoken facts--4 million people dead since 1998; more than 1,000 people dying of war-related disease and malnutrition a day--can remain beyond comprehension.

For the past eight years, photographer Marcus Bleasdale has been documenting life and war in Congo. His pictures on the following pages were taken mostly in 2006, as Congo's 60 million people prepared for the country's first free elections in four decades. Officially, war ended in 2003. But the aftershocks of one of Africa's most devastating conflagrations go on. Rebel militias continue to rape and murder, especially in the country's East. Government troops commit atrocities as well. With the election complete, it's comforting to think that the world has done its part and can now leave Congo to get on with righting itself. But the country still desperately needs help: to end the lingering violence, distribute revenues from the country's vast natural resources, and hold to account those responsible for the worst bloodshed.

Bleasdale, 38, says his photos "put a face on the 4 million." He says, "The statistics in Congo are so important and big, and yet no one talks about them." He called his 2002 book on Congo 100 Years of Darkness. A century ago, Conrad wrote that European settlement in Africa was "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration." Referring to the warring parties who have visited so much misery on Congo's people in this war, Bleasdale says, "those words are as valid today as they were then."

To hear Bleasdale and see more of his photos, go to time.com/bleasdale_congo