Known as the 'river that swallows all rivers', the mighty Congo is the umbilical cord of the nation.

The Congo River and its tributaries represent more than 3,700 miles of potentially navigable waterways. They are the principal transportation routes for millions of the Congolese people. The river network crosses an immense equatorial area, densely populated and in which many towns and villages are accessible only from the river.

The Congo is the second longest river in Africa after the Nile. It is also one of the world's largest rivers in terms of the area of its watershed and in the quantity of water discharged. The river drains the vast Congo River Basin, an area of more than 1.6 million sq miles, and at high rainy seasons in May and December, discharges approximately 1.2 million cubic feet of water per second into the Atlantic Ocean.

This powerful resource also has great hydroelectric potential, and the Inga dam built across it has not been fully exploited. It has been estimated that the DRC has the potential to produce up to 55 gigawatts of electricity, which is more than 20 times the current level of output. Almost 95 percent of the electricity produced is consumed in the Kinshasa and Katanga provinces leaving huge potential for distribution in other areas of the country, both for domestic and industrial purposes. Currently, the DRC exports electricity to six African countries including Zimbabwe, which buys more than half of the total exported quantity.

Upstream of Kinshasa, the middle Congo has seven cataracts and the waterfalls known as the Boyoma Falls where the expert Wagenia fishermen perch on their wooden net structures in the midst of the roaring waters. Past Kisangani, the river becomes navigable again. The lower Congo begins where the river turns into a wide lake and where Kinshasa, the capital of DRC, and Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, lie across both riverbanks, facing each other — they are the closest capital cities in the world — and midway between them lies the woody Mbomu Island sheltering a host of birds and monkeys.

Because Congo's road systems have been neglected during the past four decades, the Congo River has remained the sole trade artery, channeling a heavy traffic of barges as well as smaller boats. The river is a vital link between the cities and the countryside. Merchants load goods from the interior by pirogues, long narrow dug-out canoes, that reach cities along the river, such as Kisangani, Bumba, Lisala, Mbandaka and Bolobo, and from where they ship the merchandise downstream to Kinshasa. In reverse, manufactured goods coming from the Atlantic Ocean passing via Matadi are loaded into trains or trucks bypassing the Lower Congo and onto Kinshasa upstream.

The river has become the umbilical cord of the nation as people travel, send and receive messages, and buy and sell everything from palm oil kernels to live crocodiles. Where there is no major landing point, people paddle out to the passing boats and trade with the traveling merchants.

In theory, the river is a unbroken link, unlike other transport infrastructure, and has the potential to unite the seven provinces, which it crosses: Bas-Congo, Kinshasa, Bandundu, Equateur, Haut-Congo, Kivu and Katanga.

However, the symbiosis created by the river is so strong that its closure since the outbreak of the war in 1998 has not only been a major blow to the economic lifeline of the country but also to the people who live by and for it. The war cut off all communication, as boats could no longer go upstream to Kisangani, being forced to stop at Mbandaka. It turned the interior under the army occupation into forgotten and isolated pouches of disconnected satellites, wounding trading activities and dividing families.

Though boats could not venture upstream, small pirogues tried to supply the flow of trade and keep the connection open. But they only succeeded on a small and insignificant scale. Army patrols on both sides of the war made things harder for the travelers, suspecting those trying to leave as traitors or infiltrators.

The river, like a mighty boa, stretching far beyond the forest, seemed to bleed as it carried the wounded of the war, the flows of refugees and the displaced who ran to Kinshasa.

Many Congolese see the re-opening of the river as a symbol of hope for the country and a notable success for the UN peacekeeping mission there. The osmosis that the mighty river encompasses in its symbolic role has wiped away four years of division and privations, and has finally resumed the link, ushering in a stream of reconciliation and peace in the heart of the country.

Officials say they hope this will pave the way for commercial transport to travel along the Congo River once again, to bring goods from the capital in return for agricultural products from the country's interior.

The Congo River, in the present situation, symbolizes what the country has gone through and what lies ahead. The significance of its role in the life of the Congolese shows that it is the river that unites and the river that channels the will of the people.