Artillery boomed, shaking the ground, as a couple scurried through the streets of Sak\u00e9, their possessions balanced on their heads, in the embattled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
At a crossroads, they passed a giant poster of Congo\u2019s president, Felix Tshisekedi, who is standing for re-election on Wednesday. \u201cUnity, Security, Prosperity,\u201d read the slogan. They hurried along.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur children were born in war. We live in war,\u201d 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. \u201cWe\u2019re so sick of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
They joined 6.5 million people displaced by war in eastern Congo, where a conflict that has\u00a0dragged on for nearly three decades<\/a>, stoking a vast humanitarian crisis that by some estimates has claimed over six million lives, is now lurching into a volatile new phase.<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cWe live in war,\u201d one man said as he fled. \u201cWe\u2019re so sick of it.\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/Y3Q7peUqe2<\/a><\/p>\n — The New York Times (@nytimes) December 18, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n