Congo: a touch of hope in the war without end

Ngarambe Rukambika, 49, holds his nine-month-old son who was shot in the leg in Masisi hospital

A man cradles his son as he stares intensely at the camera; the baby, secure in the strong arms of his father, playfully touches the man’s mouth with an outstretched finger. Only the rough bandages swaddling the legs of the chubby infant tell a bigger story, the story of a war without end, and of those men, women, ordinary families, caught up in the fighting in eastern Congo.

The nine-month-old son of Ngarambe Rukambika, 49, was shot in the leg at the height of the fighting. These are just two individuals in a dramatic and worsening humanitarian crisis that has drawn the world’s attention since their photograph, released yesterday by Médecins Sans Frontières, was taken outside a hospital in Masisi, North Kivu, in August.

By Daniel Howden in Kinyandoni, Eastern Congo