“Our children were born in war. We live in war.”

“Our children were born in war. We live in war.” Jean Bahati and his wife are among 6.5 million people who have been displaced by war in eastern Congo, where a conflict has dragged on for nearly three decades. Disease outbreaks and food scarcity threaten the displaced. The World Food Program says it has enough to feed only 2.5 million of the estimated 6.3 million people who go to bed hungry every night in eastern Congo. “There’s a sense of fatalism about Congo. People seem to think, ‘That’s just the way it is.’ ” Cynthia Jones The World Food Program head in eastern Congo Women in Congo are especially vulnerable amidst the violence. In October, Doctors Without Borders treated on average 70 sexual assault victims every day at its clinics in Goma, a spokeswomen said. Amid the fighting, an election is taking place. President Felix Tshisekedi is running for re-election while stoking hostility to neighboring Rwanda. 46 876 likes nltimes Six million people have died and more than six million have been displaced by war in eastern Congo, where a conflict that has dragged on for nearly three decades has created one of the world’s greatest humanitarian crises. It is now lurching into a volatile new phase. Making sense of the mayhem is not easy. Over 100 armed groups are vying for supremacy across a region of lakes, mountains and rainforests slightly bigger than Florida. Meddlesome foreign powers covet its vast reserves of gold, oil and coltan, a mineral used to make cellphones and electric vehicles. Corruption is endemic. Massacres and rape are common. Amid all that, an election is taking place. Aid groups struggle to draw attention to the suffering in a country of about 100 million people, even when the numbers affected dwarf those of other crises. @declanjwalsh, the chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times, and the photographer @arty_bashizi traveled across North Kivu Province in eastern Congo to talk with people affected by the fighting there. Tap the link in our bio to read the full story.