Congo's gorilla population has been by more than 75% in the past 20 years, largely because of conflicts in the central African state. A recent report shows that in 1998 about 17,000 gorillas lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, today only 3,800 live in Congolese . A civil war has been raging in Congo since the middle of the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of Rwandans their country. Since then over 5 million people have died. In the areas of eastern Congo villagers have set up illegal mines to escape and buy weapons. Because food is , they hunt wild animals in the rainforests and collect wood for cooking. Although native environmentalists are risking their lives to the gorilla population, they aren't really making any difference. The only way to save the gorillas from is to end violence, disarm the armed groups and set up new, protected areas for the .