The warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace deal in South Africa yesterday that could pave the way for a solution to the conflict known as "Africa's first World War".
"No more blood must run," said the Congolese President Joseph Kabila before signing the agreement with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in a ceremony in Pretoria.
Coming just 10 days after a ground-breaking peace accord in Sudan, the deal brought fresh hopes yesterday of an end to some of the largest conflicts blighting the African continent.
However, the enthusiasm was tempered by reports of a massive military offensive by government troops in Sudan, in which scores of people were reported killed, including a Kenyan doctor.
There was also some scepticism about the Congo peace deal, under which Mr Kabila has agreed to expel renege Rwandan Hutus from their hiding places in the jungles of eastern Congo.
In return, President Kagame says he will withdraw his forces, estimated to be 30,000 strong, from the area within 90 days.
Military analysts say the time scale is impossibly optimistic. The terrain of eastern Congo - a mixture of jungle and highland plains - is notoriously difficult to penetrate, while the Hutu militiamen have indicated they will violently resist all attempts to repatriate them to Rwanda.
Rwanda invaded eastern Congo four years ago in search of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide that left 800,000 people dead.
The fighting quickly expanded, as the Kinshasa government called on its allies to help it fight the rebels. Soon the fighting had sucked in five countries - Angola, Zimbabwe Namibia and Chad on the side of the government, Uganda and Rwanda with the rebellion.
Although Rwanda sparked the war for security reasons, the conflict soon became synonymous with greed and plunder. Both sides ruthlessly exploited Congo's vast mineral wealth, particularly diamonds, to fund their military activities and enrich senior officers.
The war has exacted a massive human toll: over 2.5 million are estimated to have died in just four years, mostly from starvation.
The most intense suffering and worst atrocities have occurred in the Rwandan-controlled eastern zone, where the war has fragmented into a mosaic of mini-wars.
The Rwandan forces have been attacked by both government forces and local insurgents.
All sides have committed widespread human rights abuses. Every family has lost a family member, and according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, "rape has become a weapon of war".
The four years of increasingly complicated conflict have seen several peace initiatives, all of which have been broken.
While analysts are sceptical that yesterday's agreement will result in peace within 90 days, they say it could provide the basis for a settlement in the medium-term, provided both the government and Rwanda act in good faith.
Already this year, fighting in one of Africa's longest-running conflicts - the civil war in Angola - has stopped. The surprise Sudan peace agreement signed in Kenya 10 days ago added to hopes that a wave of peace was sweeping across the continent.
However fighting has intensified in Sudan in recent days as the Khartoum government apparently attempt to gain ground before peace talks in August.
An attack on the town of Tam, in the oil-rich Western Upper Nile region, left 1,000 people dead, according to Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) spokesman Samson Kwaje.
The death toll was unconfirmed, but an Irish aid worker of the Norwegian People's Aid charity said that "tens of thousands of people" had been displaced.