Congo Arab War

Congo-Arab war
Part of the end of the Arab slave trade in East Africa
Raid by slavers in Nyangwe
Date 1892–1894 Location Central and eastern Congo Free State Result Free State victory
Belligerents
Congo Free State Supported by:  Belgium	Arab-Swahili Sultanates in Eastern Congo
Commanders and leaders
Francis Dhanis Louis-Napoléon Chaltin Gongo Lutete (mid 1892-September 1893)	Tippu Tip Sefu bin Hamid † Rumaliza Gongo Lutete (until mid 1892)
Units involved
3,500 regular soldiers Around 10,000 total.	~10,000 men

 Congo Free State

The Congo Arab war (also known as the Congolese-Arab war and the Belgo-Arab War) took place in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo between the forces of Belgian King Leopold II's Congo Free State and various Zanzibari "Arab" slave traders led by Sefu bin Hamid, the son of Tippu Tip. Fighting occurred in the eastern Congo between 1892 and 1894. It was a proxy war, with most of the fighting being done by native Congolese, who aligned themselves with either side and sometimes switched sides. The causes of the war were mainly economic, since Leopold and the Arabs were contending to gain control of the wealth of the Congo. The war ended in January 1894 with a victory of Leopold's forces. Initially King Leopold collaborated with the Arabs but competition over the control of ivory turned his stance to confrontational. The war against the Swahili-Arab economic and political power was presented as a Christian anti-slavery crusade.

In 1886, while Tippu Tip was in Zanzibar, a dispute arose between a Congo Free State fort at Stanley Falls, led by Tip, and a smaller, nearby fort led by Walter Deane andDubois. Tip's men at the Stanley Falls fort alleged that Deane had stolen a slave woman from an Arab officer there. Deane asserted that the girl had fled after being badly beaten by her master, and that he had only offered her refuge. Tip's men attacked the fort and after a four-day siege, the defenders ran out of ammunition and fled, abandoning the fort. The Free State made no counterattack, and Tip began to move more men into the Congo, including several Arab slave captains and also some Congolese leaders, such as Gongo Lutete.

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