The Banyamulenge is a term historically describing the ethnic Tutsi concentrated on the High Plateau of South Kivu, in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, close to the Burundi-Congo-Rwanda border. The ambiguous political and social position of the Banyamulenge has been a point of contention in the province, leading to the Banyamulenge playing a key role in the run-up to the First Congo War in 1996-7 and Second Congo War of 1998–2003.