Kindu is a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the capital of Maniema province. It has a population of about 200,000 and is situated on the Lualaba River at an altitude of about 500 metres, and is about 400 km west of Bukavu.

The Congo Crisis was a period of political upheaval and conflict between 1960 and 1965 in the Republic of the Congo. The crisis began almost immediately after the Congo became independent from Belgium and ended, unofficially, with the entire country under the rule of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu. Constituting a series of civil wars, the Congo Crisis was also a proxy conflict in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union and the United States supported opposing factions. Around 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the crisis.