BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Families bear pain of Congo clashes

BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Families bear pain of Congo clashes: "I stood at the end of the bed, watching his chest rise and fall. He lay in a stuffy, makeshift clinic, run by a handful of overstretched doctors from Medecins sans Frontieres.

His name was Fiston, and he was three years old but so small I had mistaken him for a baby.

I asked a young Congolese doctor if he would live. 'We hope so,' he told me, but he dropped his eyes. I think he could not bring himself to say what he already knew.

Just minutes after we left the room, Fiston died. At the time his young mother was outside weeping. All week I found myself wishing that he had not died alone.

In his short time on earth, Fiston lived a lifetime of horror - hungry, hunted, prey to rebel fighters and to disease."

Officially, he was born in peacetime, after Congo's multi-layered conflict ended in 2003.

But peace has eluded the east of the country and the feared Mai Mai militia are trying to grab as much power as they can.

They are farmers turned fighters - fierce and superstitious. It was former President Laurent Kabila who recruited them in 1998 to stem the advance of Rwandan-backed forces.