Displaced Congolese people waiting for aid (File photo)

In eastern Congo, an estimated 250,000 people have fled their homes to escape weeks of fighting between rebels and government troops.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, of the National Congress for Defense of the People,  says he is fighting to protect Congo's Tutsi minority from ethnic Hutu militias, which took refuge in the country after the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. 

Since August, the conflict in eastern Congo has intensified. Despite visits by high-level envoys, there is still no sign of an agreement between the government and the rebels. Paige Kollock reports on how the  displaced are coping.