Artillery roared and shook the ground as a couple scurried through the streets of Saké in the embattled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with possessions balanced on their heads.

At an intersection they passed a huge poster of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, who is running for re-election on December 20th. “Unity, security, prosperity” was the slogan. They hurried on.

“Our children were born in war. We are living at war,” Jean Bahati said, his face covered in sweat as he paused to take a breath. It was the fifth time he and his wife had been forced to flee, he said. “We’re so sick of it.”

They joined the 6.5 million people displaced by war in eastern Congo, where conflict is raging lasted almost three decadeswhich triggered a massive humanitarian crisis that is estimated to have claimed over six million lives, is now plunging into a new, volatile phase.

It is not easy to understand the chaos. More than 100 armed groups and multiple national armies vie for dominance in a region of lakes, mountains and rainforests slightly larger than Florida. Intrusive foreign powers covet vast reserves of gold, oil and coltan, a mineral used to make cellphones and electric vehicles. Corruption is widespread. Massacres and rapes are commonplace.

Nevertheless, aid organizations find it difficult to draw attention to the suffering in a country with around 100 million inhabitants, even if the number of those affected dwarfs that of other crises.

“There is a sense of fatalism about Congo,” said Cynthia Jones, head of the World Food Program in eastern Congo. “People seem to think that’s just how it is.”

However, this is the final phase of the war began in earnest two years agois drawn in unusually clear lines.

On one side is the M23, a well-organized but ruthless rebel group that the United States and United Nations say is backed by Rwanda, Congo’s eastern neighbor that is one hundredth the size of Congo. (Rwanda denies any connection.) Since October, the M23 has taken over the main roads into Goma, the region’s capital, as well as the hills overlooking Saké, 10 miles to the west.

On the other side is the Congolese army, whose troops are notoriously undisciplined – even as fighting raged near Saké last week, drunken soldiers raced through the streets. But their strength is bolstered by two new allies.

One of them is the Wazalendo, Swahili for patriots, a coalition of once-rival militias that the government cobbled together to fend off M23, even though the fighters are known for their factionalism and brutality.

The second is a force of around 1,000 Romanian mercenaries, many of whom were formerly with the French Foreign Legion, who are stationed around Goma and Saké. If M23 tries to take the city – which it did briefly in 2012 – the Romanians will be given the task of defending it. “They are the last line of defense,” Romuald, a retired French officer who advises the Congolese military, said at a lakeside restaurant in Goma. For security reasons, he asked that his last name be omitted.

In the midst of all this, an election is taking place.

Mr Tshisekedi, considered the favorite to win the presidential race, initially pushed for peace after his election in 2019 following a disputed vote. But that attempt failed, and now he is aggressively stoking public hostility toward Rwanda, including personal attacks on its leader, President Paul Kagame.

“Kagame must die!” Supporters chanted last Sunday at a rain-soaked rally in Goma, where Mr Tshisekedi arrived by boat after crossing Lake Kivu. At an earlier rally he had compared Mr Kagame to Adolf Hitler – a comparison made by a Rwandan government spokeswoman called “a clear and present threat.”

In January, Rwanda and Congo appeared to be on the brink of open war after Rwanda fired missiles across the border at a Congolese fighter jet as it landed at Goma airport. However, the greatest danger now is that Congolese civilians will be plunged into another round of misery.

In the last two months alone, over half a million people have fled their homes, most of them to the squalid camps that have sprung up around Goma. A sea of ​​rough shacks made of sticks and tarps spread across plains dotted with sharp black lava rocks. Bubbling in the distance is Mount Nyiragongo, an active volcano that provides a dramatic backdrop to Goma.

Foul-smelling mud flows between the shelters. There is a risk of disease outbreaks. Food is scarce. According to the World Food Program, the amount is enough to feed just 2.5 million of the estimated 6.3 million people who go to bed hungry each night in eastern Congo.

Even soldiers fight. In the run-down public hospital in Saké, a wounded soldier, Jules Amundala, dozed on a dirty mattress with a gunshot wound in one leg. Mr. Amundala, 26, said he was shot in an ambush that killed his commander. But his biggest concern was nutrition – the hospital had not been able to feed patients for several days, doctors said.

In a region where guns take precedence over the law, women are particularly at risk. From the camps around Goma, many trek to nearby Virunga National Park, famous for its mountain gorillas, in search of firewood. What they often find, however, are armed men.

“They gave me a choice,” said Amani, 42, recalling a Dec. 8 encounter with three armed men in the park. “They said, ‘Either we attack you or we kill you.'”

“I said I would rather be raped.”

The mother of seven children then stumbled back to her hut in a refugee camp, bleeding heavily. A day later, she arrived at a Doctors Without Borders clinic, where she spoke and asked to be identified only by name.

She said it was the second time she had been raped by armed men during the war. The pile of wood she was going to get to feed her children was worth $2.

In October, Doctors Without Borders treated an average of 70 victims of sexual assault each day at its clinics in Goma, a spokeswoman said. In the wider North Kivu region, at least 18,000 cases have been treated this year.

Congo’s ordeal began with the Rwandan genocide in 1994. After the massacre that killed 800,000 people, a flood of refugees poured into Congo, leading to unrest that eventually led to the overthrow of the kleptocratic leader Mobutu Sese Seko and led to a ruinous civil war.

Three decades later, the shadow of the genocide still hangs over Congo. Rwanda’s Mr. Kagame justifies his cross-border interventions by saying he is still hunting the ethnic Hutu killers hiding in Congo who carried out the 1994 killings.

But economic and strategic interests also play a role. Rwanda has long viewed eastern Congo as its strategic backyard – the Rwandan capital Kigali is just 60 miles from Goma – and a source of income. Congo’s finance minister says his country is losing 1 billion dollars per year by smuggling gold and other valuable minerals through Rwanda.

In this chaos, it is difficult to maintain even a façade of democracy: in the districts of Rutshuru and Masisi, north of Goma, 1.5 million people will not be able to vote in Wednesday’s election because the M23 controls these areas.

However, the M23 is not the only threat to peace. In Virunga National Park, rangers are trying to fend off invading groups from all sides, poaching animals and confiscating land. Over 200 rangers were killed, often in clashes with armed groups.

“Where the fire burns, it is the FDLR,” park director Emmanuel de Merode said recently as he piloted his Cessna over the park, referring to a notorious Hutu militia. “It’s May-May in these hills. And between here and the mountains it’s the M23.”

Elephants were lounging by a lake directly below the plane.

At a fortified base in Nyamitwitwi, near the border with Uganda, rangers piloted a drone along the park fence. Last month, militants attacked here and tore down five miles of fence, said Elia Muvulia, the camp’s commander.

After a struggle, the rangers managed to put it back in order.

When the M23 last launched a major offensive a decade ago, it was the United States that struggled to push it back. President Barack Obama and other officials cut aid to Rwanda and personally called Mr. Kagame to pressure him.

This time the West is divided: The United States is openly critical of the Rwandan intervention in Congo and recently cut some military aid to Rwanda. But Britain, whose government is trying to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, has remained largely silent.

A rare hope for peace emerged Monday when the White House made the announcement a 72-hour break in fighting around Goma.

Romuald, the French military adviser, said the ceasefire was brought about by the arrival of a powerful new weapon: Chinese drones that Congo recently acquired and which he said hit Rwandan troops near Goma last weekend.

He pulled out his phone and played a video that showed a rocket hitting dozens of soldiers gathered on a hill. The footage could not be independently verified, although a Congolese military spokesman confirmed his claims.

A Rwandan government spokeswoman did not respond to questions about the strike.

The French adviser called it a new stage in the long wars in Congo. If Rwandan troops do not leave, there will be further attacks, he said.

“We will strike, strike, strike, strike,” he said.