This city of about one million inhabitants located in the conflict-prone eastern Congolese province of North Kivu has had few tributes written to it. From afar, its recent history is a saga of misfortune that makes it seem like Baghdad with a lakefront view, or Mogadishu without the white-sand beaches. Since 1996, it's been besieged, ransacked, inundated with refugees, and leveled by a volcanic eruption. Around a million Rwandans showed up on the city's doorstep after the country's 1994 genocide. And just in the past year, more than 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been chased there by the M23 rebel movement, which marched on the city late last year.
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