ApplicationContext.xml cannot be found when starting Tomcat server - eclipse

Question

I searched more questions about this issue on SO e.g putting applicationContext to WEB-INF/classes or src/resources add WEB-INF to build path but none of them seems to work
Im using maven to buil my Java EE project and always gat
java.io.FileNotFoundException: Could not open ServletContext resource [/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml]
Heres my web.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xmlns:web="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd"
version="2.5">
<display-name>Java EE Application Example</display-name>
<welcome-file-list>
<welcome-file>index.jsp</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.DEFAULT_SUFFIX</param-name>
<param-value>.xhtml</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>facelets.DEVELOPMENT</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
<param-name>javax.faces.FACELETS_REFRESH_PERIOD</param-name>
<param-value>1</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Resources Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.js.resource.ResourceServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>0</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Resources Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/resources/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value></param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Spring MVC Dispatcher Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/app/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>*.jsf</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<filter>
<filter-name>charEncodingFilter</filter-name>
<filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>encoding</param-name>
<param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
</init-param>
<init-param>
<param-name>forceEncoding</param-name>
<param-value>true</param-value>
</init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>charEncodingFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>
<!-- Spring security filters -->
</web-app>
And heres applicationContext.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd">
<import resource="datasource-config.xml" />
<import resource="webflow-config.xml" />
</beans>
Both files are in /src/webapp/WEB-INF/
Im using tomcat 7.0
EDIT: my project structure screenshot project stucture
Any help will be appreciated
EDIT2:
heres my pom.xml file
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.example.j2eeapp</groupId>
<artifactId>j2eeapplication</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<name>J2EE Application Example</name>
<repositories>
<repository>
<id>prime-repo</id>
<name>PrimeFaces Maven Repository</name>
<url>http://repository.primefaces.org</url>
</repository>
</repositories>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
<version>4.1.8.Final</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
<version>4.2.0.Final</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>4.8.2</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.webflow</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-webflow</artifactId>
<version>2.3.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.webflow</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-faces</artifactId>
<version>2.3.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-orm</artifactId>
<version>3.1.1.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.oracle</groupId>
<artifactId>ojdbc14</artifactId>
<version>10.2.0.1.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
<version>1.2.16</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
<artifactId>jsf-impl</artifactId>
<version>2.1.10</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun.facelets</groupId>
<artifactId>jsf-facelets</artifactId>
<version>1.1.14</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
<artifactId>jsf-api</artifactId>
<version>2.1.10</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>commons-dbcp</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-dbcp</artifactId>
<version>20030825.184428</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
<version>1.6.4</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.0.1</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-tx</artifactId>
<version>3.0.5.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>xml-apis</groupId>
<artifactId>xml-apis</artifactId>
<version>1.3.02</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
<version>3.1.3.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
<version>3.1.3.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.primefaces</groupId>
<artifactId>primefaces</artifactId>
<version>3.4</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>cglib</groupId>
<artifactId>cglib</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
<artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
<version>4.1.8.Final</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>

Answer 1

I got the same error. I solved it moving the file applicationContext.xmlin a sub-folder of the srcfolder. e.g:
context = newClassPathXmlApplicationContext("/com/example/rawfile/applicationContext.xml")