The Overlooked Crisis in Congo: ‘We Live in War’
Six million have died, and more than six million are displaced after decades of fighting and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, drawing in neighbors, mercenaries and militias. An upcoming election is inflaming tempers.
By Declan Walsh
Photographs by Arlette Bashizi
Declan Walsh and Arlette Bashizi traveled across North Kivu Province in eastern Congo to talk with people affected by the fighting there.
- Dec. 17, 2023
Artillery boomed, shaking the ground, as a couple scurried through the streets of Saké, their possessions balanced on their heads, in the embattled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At a crossroads, they passed a giant poster of Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, who is standing for re-election on Wednesday. “Unity, Security, Prosperity,” read the slogan. They hurried along.
“Our children were born in war. We live in war,” Jean Bahati, his face beaded with sweat, said as he paused for breath. It was the fifth time that he and his wife had been forced to flee, he said. “We’re so sick of it.”
They joined 6.5 million people displaced by war in eastern Congo, where a conflict that has dragged on for nearly three decades, stoking a vast humanitarian crisis that by some estimates has claimed over six million lives, is now lurching into a volatile new phase.
