The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo has claimed 3.9 million lives, according to a study.
It says starvation and disease caused by a conflict, which began in 1998, were by far the greatest killers.
The results of the study, conducted by the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based relief agency, are published in the British medical journal The Lancet.
"Congo is the deadliest crisis anywhere in the world over the past 60 years," said Richard Brennan, the study's main author. "Ignorance about its scale and impact is almost universal and international engagement remains completely out of proportion to humanitarian need." The committee found that Congo's war claimed 38,000 lives every month in 2004.