He's been dubbed the "Schindler of Congo" for acts of heroism, but now he's the one in need of saving. 
 
 Pastor Marrion P'Udongo earned his nickname for saving nearly 100 people from murderous militiamen in 2003 — but that was only one of his many acts of courage. 
 
 He's gone into the bush to coax out child soldiers, helped scores of rape victims secure medical treatment, fed and clothed inmates in Congo's most notorious prison and helps run an orphanage for children impacted by his nation's decades-long war. 
 
 Pastor Marrion P'Udongo is seen ministering to pygmies. Pastor Marrion P’Udongo 
 
 But today, the man also known simply as "pastor" to many spends his days hooked up to a dialysis machine and praying for a miracle. 
 
 "I don't feel in my heart that I should die now," he told NBC News. "I still have a lot to do." 
 
 P'Udongo nearly died in 2011 from kidney failure; a massive fundraising campaign helped cover the cost of a life-saving transplant. But the donor organ was slow to take and this spring he got bad news: his body was rejecting the kidney. 
 
 Suddenly, he was back where he started — and desperately in need of assistance. 
 
 Several people volunteered as new donors. A match was found and paperwork arranged for a transplant at a hospital in India, which reportedly has a higher success rate for such procedures. 
 
 "There are really people who want to help. So many. But the challenge is that we don't have money," P'Udongo said. 
 
 He needs around $35,000 for the procedure. The pastor is currently living off his $200 a month salary and a patchwork of donations to pay for medical care and rent in Uganda's capital, where he gets dialysis three times a week and only goes out for church. 
 
 "It's like a life in a prison," he said. "You can't go far from where there is no dialysis." 
 
 Pastor Marrion P'Udongo in the hospital. Pastor Marrion P’Udongo 
 
 He can't take joy from food anymore — most of the time, he doesn't have an appetite — and says with a trademark giggle that he's lost so much weight he's "like a little boy." 
 
 "I'm not very strong to walk and many times I feel a lot of pain," he said, turning serious. "Sometimes you feel like you will not make it any more." 
 
 P'Udongo's current reality stands in stark contrast to his life in Bunia, where his work made him feel "like I'm doing one of the best things in the world." 
 
 Human-rights workers, journalists and Hollywood stars like Ben Affleck who worked with him there agree — and are fighting to ensure he gets back there to continue his mission. 
 
 “ He’s like a Moses character … Even the most wicked militia guys, they loved him” 
 
 Affleck — founder of the Eastern Congo Initiative — called the pastor a "friend and a hero." 
 
 He said he first met P'Udongo in 2008 on a visit to northeastern Congo, where the pastor helped him understand the "complexity and possibility" of wartorn Bunia along with the "stark realities of life" for those affected by war. 
 
 "Pastor is a genius connector, translator, producer and fixer but he is first and foremost a great humanitarian," Affleck said in an emailed statement to NBC News. 
 
 Bryan Mealer is one of the reporters who relied on P'Udongo as a "fixer," or guide, during Congo's war. 
 
 "Look at the world right now… you don't see a lot of really good people left," Mealer said. "This is one of them." 
 
 Mealer — who has led fundraising efforts for pastor's first and this latest transplant effort — said he was "incredibly moved" from the moment he met P'Udongo. 
 
 "He has kind of a power around him — it's a magic," he explained, adding that what sets P'Udongo apart was his ability to access all sides in the protracted conflict. 
 
 "He's like a Moses character," Mealer said. "You would walk through the bush and people would just run out to him. He was this kind of lighthouse through all these years of war. Even the most wicked militia guys, they loved him." 
 
 The Schindler comparisons started after the siege of Bunia in May 2003. Ethnic Lendu militiamen tore into the town and started butchering members of the Hema ethnic group in the streets. 
 
 Dozens of desperate Hema went to the pastor's house seeking refuge. 
 
 "Hema were being captured by the militias in order to be slaughtered," the pastor explained. He sheltered around 70 people for about a week — with little food or water but plenty of prayer — until fighters kicked down his door. 
 
 "The militia came in and they wanted to kill the people who were there," P'Udongo said. "All Hema — including my wife." 
 
 Pastor Marrion P’Udongo preaches to a large crowd. Pastor Marrion P’Udongo 
 
 He said he thought he might die but felt compelled to act, so he pleaded for mercy. 
 
 "People cannot be killed by dogs," he said. "I was feeling that passion in my heart to ... plead with them." 
 
 The militiamen seemed undeterred, until a fighter came in who'd seen pastor preach. 
 
 "He said, 'we know this pastor, he's a good man so we cannot kill these people here,'" P'Udongo recalled. That stroke of luck — or act of God, as pastor describes it — secured their safety, and the militiamen escorted all of them to a U.N. base. 
 
 When asked about the Schindler nickname, P'Udongo laughs. 
 
 "It's a big name," he said with his giggle. While he acknowledges saving "many people" during the war — he insists he was just doing his job. 
 
 "It's my responsibility as a pastor … not only to preach but also to risk our life for the sake of others," he explained. 
 
 Pastor has carried on his saving since that moment in Bunia, most recently devoting his time to his prison ministry and helping run the St. Kizito orphanage there. 
 
 His colleague there, Elysee Pifwa, volunteered and matched as his kidney donor — a testament to pastor's impact, according to Mealer. 
 
 "When you put it into terms of him being gone … There's no getting him back," Mealer said. "There's no reproducing someone like this who has given, who gives his life for others." 
 
 He said that the 80 kids at the orphanage — many brought in by P'Udongo himself — would be devastated to lose their protector. 
 
 "Those kids need him — they really depend on him," added Mealer, one of the orphanage's founders. "He's the oil that helps that place run." 
 
 Pastor Marrion P'Udongo ministers to pygmies. Pastor Marrion P’Udongo 
 
 P'Udongo was an orphan himself. Early on, he made money smuggling gasoline across the border between Uganda and Congo before finding God in the 90s. He began ministering to refugees from the Rwandan genocide who had come into Congo. Then, fighting hit home. 
 
 "It was like a calling … to help his community," Mealer said. 
 
 He described how P'Udongo would go into the bush to preach about God but also about the developments and how to get help — a phenomenon Mealer witnessed while pastor helped him as a "fixer" navigating coverage of the war. 
 
 "To see someone who is positive and to see someone who had this light shining through them was so good for people," Mealer said. "This was a place where there was absolutely no hope." 
 
 Mealer said small acts of kindness to help save the pastor's life would reverberate and benefit the orphans, prisoners and countless others touched by P'Udongo and those who could be helped in the future. 
 
 "This is a good man doing good work in a place where there isn't a lot of goodness left," he said. "It's a good person working on this earth, helping people without a voice and without a lot of power. If he's gone, that will be lost. The darkness that tries to force itself into every small place will win again." 
 
 P'Udongo said he's more worried about his family — his wife of 16 years, four young biological children and one young orphan he has taken in to raise as his own — and his country. 
 
 "I'm not feeling that I should die now," the pastor said. "I think my presence is doing something there. If I am not there… who will fill that gap?" 
 
 "No, I should not die now… There's still a lot to do." ||||| This past July, I got a call saying that a dear friend had suffered severe kidney failure and wasn't expected to live. Pastor Marrion P'Udongo has been called the "Oskar Schindler of Congo," a man who's helped save and nurture hundreds of lives in a country where war has claimed millions. 
 
 To the people of northeastern Congo, Pastor Marrion was both a saint and a hero, providing shelter to the hunted and hope to a community withered by violence. And to journalists like myself, he was an ace fixer and translator -- one of the few people to offer access into this complicated and often incredibly dangerous conflict. Over the past decade, the pastor has worked for just about every major news organization in the world. Chances are if you've read a story about Congo in recent years, or seen one on television, the pastor probably helped make it happen. 
 
 As colleagues and I scrambled to get the pastor to nearby Kampala, Uganda, for emergency dialysis, I thought about what an immense loss his death would be -- not to us reporters, but to the embattled country itself. For the pastor, working for journalists was just a way to finance his own war against the war, a battle he waged alone and most always at the risk of his own safety. 
 
 In early May 2003, his town of Bunia was invaded by ethnic Lendu militia looking to gain control over area gold mines. This sideshow of Congo's bigger war -- fought largely over the country's vast mineral resources -- pit the Lendu against their rival Hema, who owned many businesses in Bunia and whose militia controlled the mines. As gunboys -- many under the age of 16 -- marched through town, they pulled Hema residents from their homes and executed them in the streets. The Hema, close cousins of the Rwandan Tutsi who were targeted in the 1994 genocide, fled by the hundreds to a nearby United Nations base for refuge, only to be locked out. With no place to turn, many ran to the home of Pastor Marrion, whose own wife Juliette was a Hema. For days, as bodies of neighbors and relatives filled the streets, the pastor sheltered over 70 people in his small living room. 
 
 Gunboys finally discovered them one afternoon and kicked down the door. One by one, the group was stripped naked and marched into the road to be shot, along with the pastor, his wife, and their three children. But before any bullets were fired, one of the lieutenants recognized the pastor. He'd once been a member of his congregation. 
 
 "This pastor can't die," he argued with his commander. "He is too good a man to be killed like this." The commander ordered the gunboys away and looked at the pastor. "I should kill you and everyone here," he said. "But something is telling me no." 
 
 Miraculously, he then ordered the militia to escort the group to the UN headquarters, which had since opened its gates to the displaced. Once they were gone, the militia returned and looted everything in the pastor's house. 
 
 Years later, that same commander was arrested by the Congolese government and put in prison. The first visitor he received was the pastor himself. 
 
 "The reason I am alive is because of him," he said, breaking into one of his signature laughs that caused his eyes to disappear beneath his round cheeks. "My chief, we are living because of the grace of God!" 
 
 In the following years, as fighting caused millions to flee their homes and into the bush, only to be raped and pillaged by soldiers and militia, the pastor became a kind of lighthouse for the multitude of scattered souls. He ministered in the squalid displaced camps throughout northeastern Congo, where spirits were broken and sickness claimed dozens each day. He helped operate St. Kizito Orphanage, started by Catholic nuns in Bunia to house 135 children whose families were killed during the war. With pastor as chief fundraiser, the sisters now fend for themselves. 
 
 Often, the pastor would venture alone into the bush with a megaphone and sacks of food in search of child soldiers -- many orphaned themselves during the fighting and left as easy prey for militia. Despite routine death threats, he convinced many to disarm, and if possible, try and become children once again. 
 
 "We should not just preach that people who believe in God will go to Heaven," he once said. "We should know how to spare their lives when they're still on this earth." 
 
 The pastor is now languishing in a Kampala boarding house, weak and unable to travel, except for his weekly trips for dialysis. His doctors say that in order to live, he desperately needs a kidney transplant. The nearest place for the operation is Johannesburg, South Africa; we're also working with doctors in neighboring Rwanda who may be able to help. The price tag for such a procedure is about $76,000. 
 
 The good news is we found a kidney donor. My colleagues and I have since started a campaign to raise the money. By donating to the Pastor Marrion Fund, you can help. 
 
 In your lifetime, there are few moments when you're given the opportunity to directly save another person's life. And as Schindler said, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." In a place like Congo, nothing rings more true. The country needs its hero now more than ever, not just to offer hope to the broken and scattered, but to make sure their stories get told. So I ask you now, who's with me? Who's going to help me save the guy? 
 
 Go to Indiegogo.com/The-Pastor-Marrion-Fund/ to make a contribution. ||||| This past July, I got a call saying that a dear friend had suffered severe kidney failure and wasn't expected to live. Pastor Marrion P'Udongo has been called the "Oskar Schindler of Congo," a man who's helped save and nurture hundreds of lives in a country where war has claimed millions. 
 
 To the people of northeastern Congo, Pastor Marrion was both a saint and a hero, providing shelter to the hunted and hope to a community withered by violence. And to journalists like myself, he was an ace fixer and translator -- one of the few people to offer access into this complicated and often incredibly dangerous conflict. Over the past decade, the pastor has worked for just about every major news organization in the world. Chances are if you've read a story about Congo in recent years, or seen one on television, the pastor probably helped make it happen. 
 
 As colleagues and I scrambled to get the pastor to nearby Kampala, Uganda, for emergency dialysis, I thought about what an immense loss his death would be -- not to us reporters, but to the embattled country itself. For the pastor, working for journalists was just a way to finance his own war against the war, a battle he waged alone and most always at the risk of his own safety. 
 
 In early May 2003, his town of Bunia was invaded by ethnic Lendu militia looking to gain control over area gold mines. This sideshow of Congo's bigger war -- fought largely over the country's vast mineral resources -- pit the Lendu against their rival Hema, who owned many businesses in Bunia and whose militia controlled the mines. As gunboys -- many under the age of 16 -- marched through town, they pulled Hema residents from their homes and executed them in the streets. The Hema, close cousins of the Rwandan Tutsi who were targeted in the 1994 genocide, fled by the hundreds to a nearby United Nations base for refuge, only to be locked out. With no place to turn, many ran to the home of Pastor Marrion, whose own wife Juliette was a Hema. For days, as bodies of neighbors and relatives filled the streets, the pastor sheltered over 70 people in his small living room. 
 
 Gunboys finally discovered them one afternoon and kicked down the door. One by one, the group was stripped naked and marched into the road to be shot, along with the pastor, his wife, and their three children. But before any bullets were fired, one of the lieutenants recognized the pastor. He'd once been a member of his congregation. 
 
 "This pastor can't die," he argued with his commander. "He is too good a man to be killed like this." The commander ordered the gunboys away and looked at the pastor. "I should kill you and everyone here," he said. "But something is telling me no." 
 
 Miraculously, he then ordered the militia to escort the group to the UN headquarters, which had since opened its gates to the displaced. Once they were gone, the militia returned and looted everything in the pastor's house. 
 
 Years later, that same commander was arrested by the Congolese government and put in prison. The first visitor he received was the pastor himself. 
 
 "The reason I am alive is because of him," he said, breaking into one of his signature laughs that caused his eyes to disappear beneath his round cheeks. "My chief, we are living because of the grace of God!" 
 
 In the following years, as fighting caused millions to flee their homes and into the bush, only to be raped and pillaged by soldiers and militia, the pastor became a kind of lighthouse for the multitude of scattered souls. He ministered in the squalid displaced camps throughout northeastern Congo, where spirits were broken and sickness claimed dozens each day. He helped operate St. Kizito Orphanage, started by Catholic nuns in Bunia to house 135 children whose families were killed during the war. With pastor as chief fundraiser, the sisters now fend for themselves. 
 
 Often, the pastor would venture alone into the bush with a megaphone and sacks of food in search of child soldiers -- many orphaned themselves during the fighting and left as easy prey for militia. Despite routine death threats, he convinced many to disarm, and if possible, try and become children once again. 
 
 "We should not just preach that people who believe in God will go to Heaven," he once said. "We should know how to spare their lives when they're still on this earth." 
 
 The pastor is now languishing in a Kampala boarding house, weak and unable to travel, except for his weekly trips for dialysis. His doctors say that in order to live, he desperately needs a kidney transplant. The nearest place for the operation is Johannesburg, South Africa; we're also working with doctors in neighboring Rwanda who may be able to help. The price tag for such a procedure is about $76,000. 
 
 The good news is we found a kidney donor. My colleagues and I have since started a campaign to raise the money. By donating to the Pastor Marrion Fund, you can help. 
 
 In your lifetime, there are few moments when you're given the opportunity to directly save another person's life. And as Schindler said, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." In a place like Congo, nothing rings more true. The country needs its hero now more than ever, not just to offer hope to the broken and scattered, but to make sure their stories get told. So I ask you now, who's with me? Who's going to help me save the guy? 
 
 Go to Indiegogo.com/The-Pastor-Marrion-Fund/ to make a contribution. 
 
 For more information, e-mail me at: thepastormarrionfund@gmail.com ||||| Several weeks ago I wrote about Pastor Marrion P’Udongo, my fixer in the Democratic Republic of Congo who’d suffered kidney failure. Pastor Marrion worked as a fixer with just about every journalist who passed through the region, and spent years guiding photographers through displacement camps, firefights, and into the homes of people who’d been raped and assaulted. And as a result, the world is more informed about this chronically underreported conflict. 
 
 When I wrote the story in April, he was in Nairobi on the verge of dying while we scrambled to find money for a life-saving kidney transplant. Many people responded with such amazing generosity that we managed to pull the funds together for Marrion’s procedure. And on May 26, he received a new kidney, donated by his nephew. 
 
 
 
 It was an enormous achievement, but that wasn’t the end. Two days after the transplant, the new kidney went into shock, or as the Pastor’s doctors described, “a state of slumber.” Pastor Marrion suffered excruciating pain and his body became swollen. Then, as we feared, doctors informed us the body was rejecting the new kidney. We feared for the worst, so we began scouring eastern Congo looking for another possible donor, a process that before had taken us months. 
 
 Then one afternoon, Riccardo Gangale, a fellow photographer and close friend of the Pastor, called and said the kidney was starting to show signs of waking up. Pastor Marrion’s body was beginning to heal. 
 
 Two weeks later and Pastor Marrion has recovered well enough to send me an email. Without souls like Riccardo, Bryan Mealer, Taylor Krauss, and the over 500 people who gave anything from $2 to $8,000, this amazing feat would have never taken place – proof that miracles can happen through the power of community. Pastor’s words to you and me were as follows: 
 
 “My health is better, my result from the hospital today was so good. 
 
 My kidney is working well…Thank you so much for saving my life 
 
 God bless you and thank you all.” 
 
 And because of the donations, the pastor can hopefully go home soon. He’ll be returning to the St. Kizito orphanage that he helps manage in the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to over 100 kids whose parents perished during the war. He’ll return to the primary school he started in the Tagba displaced camp, where people who lost everything to violence can at least know their children’s education is secure. He’ll go home to his community, his family, and the journalists who still need his courage and skills to help them tell this story. 
 
 However, Pastor Marrion still needs support. The operation, medication, and hospital bills have drained all of the money raised. In the coming weeks, the pastor will require another surgery to open his urinary tract, which will cost upwards of $5,000. In addition, we need to cover the cost of vital anti-rejection medication for at least several months until the pastor is able to work again. 
 
 And if possible, we’d like to set up a small education fund for Uyer Omaka, Pastor Marrion’s 24-year old nephew who so bravely volunteered as the donor. In a society as broken as Congo, it is encouraging to know there are still young men as noble and selfless as he. Already he’s following a path of service and sacrifice like his uncle. We only hope to help his journey. 
 
 To learn more about Pastor Marrion and to donate to the fund set up to help him, visit Indiegogo.com. 
 
 Marcus Bleasdale, an award-winning photographer based in Oslo, is a member of the VII Photo Agency. Bleasdale has published two books, “One Hundred Years of Darkness” and “The Rape of a Nation“. ||||| 1 of 5. Congolese warlord Ngudjolo Chui (L) sits in the courtroom during his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague December 18, 2012. 
 
 THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Congolese militia leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui was acquitted at the Hague war crimes court on Tuesday, after prosecutors failed to prove he ordered atrocities in eastern Congo a decade ago. 
 
 Delivering only its second verdict in 10 years of existence, the International Criminal Court (ICC) found Ngudjolo not guilty of ordering killings during a war in Ituri district in 2003. In its first ever verdict, delivered in July, the court had jailed an opposing commander, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, for 14 years. 
 
 Ngudjolo was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including overseeing killings, rape and pillage. His prosecutors will appeal the verdict and, though the court said Ngudjolo should be freed in the meantime, it was not immediately clear that he could leave the ICC detention facility for now. 
 
 The judges said they had no doubt the people of Ituri suffered the massacres described at Ngudjolo's trial and critics of the ICC called for better prosecutions in future in order that victims and their surviving relatives should have justice. 
 
 "The people trusted the International Criminal Court more than our national courts," said Emmanuel Folo of Ituri human rights group Equitas. "After this decision, for those who were victims of this, there is a feeling of disappointment. The victims feel forgotten, abandoned by international justice." 
 
 The violence in Ituri was a localized ethnic clash over land and resources among myriad conflicts that spun out of the wider war in Democratic Republic of Congo from 1998 to 2003. 
 
 Some rebels involved in the current M23 insurgency in neighboring North Kivu province were involved in fighting in Ituri - among them M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda, who is himself on the ICC wanted list for war crimes alleged in Ituri in 2003. 
 
 VILLAGE MASSACRE 
 
 Prosecutors accused Ngudjolo of ordering fighters to block roads around the village of Bogoro in February 2003 in order to kill civilians attempting to flee and said civilians, including women and children, were burned alive in blazing houses. Some 200 people were killed when ethnic Lendu and Ngiti fighters destroyed the homes of the village's mainly Hema inhabitants. 
 
 "The prosecution failed to investigate the chain of command adequately as far as the attack in Bogoro is concerned," international criminal lawyer Nick Kaufmann said. 
 
 The ICC judges said prosecution witnesses who testified to Ngudjolo's involvement were not credible. But president judge Bruno Cotte also said: "This does not in any way throw into question what befell the people of that area on that day." 
 
 Geraldine Mattioli-Zeltner of Human Rights Watch said: "The acquittal of Ngudjolo leaves the victims of Bogoro and other massacres by his forces without justice for their suffering. 
 
 "The ICC prosecutor needs to strengthen its investigations of those responsible for grave crimes in Ituri, including high-ranking officials in Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda who supported the armed groups fighting there." 
 
 UNLIKELY TO BE OVERTURNED 
 
 Legal experts said it was unlikely the acquittal would be overturned because new evidence cannot be introduced at appeal. Appeals panels rarely reassess the credibility of witnesses. 
 
 Until then, it is not clear where Ngudjolo might go, if anywhere. He remains under a United Nations travel ban dating from his indictment. The Netherlands, where he has been detained since 2008, is not obliged to take him in. A Congo government spokesman said he saw no reason for Congo not to take Ngudjolo back, but he suggested it may wait until after the appeal. 
 
 Ngudjolo was arrested by U.N. peacekeepers in 2003 but later recruited to the Congolese army as part of efforts to integrate former rebels. Made a colonel in 2006, he was arrested in the Congolese capital Kinshasa in 2008 and handed over to the ICC. 
 
 The fate of Ngudjolo's co-accused Germain Katanga is yet to be decided after judges split the two cases last month in a controversial move some analysts said may increase the probability of a conviction against the more prominent Katanga. 
 
 The court's first verdict found Lubanga guilty of recruiting child soldiers to another militia in the same conflict in Ituri. Some observers said the different outcomes of the trials for militia leaders from different tribes could cause new friction. 
 
 "Lubanga was a Hema leader, and the acquittal of a Ngudjolo, a Lendu, just after the conviction of a Hema could exacerbate tension between the two ethnicities in Ituri," said Jennifer Easterday of the Open Society Justice Initiative. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Joe Bavier in Abidjan and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Michael Roddy and Alastair Macdonald) ||||| Image copyright AFP 
 
 UPDATE 5 October 2018: Denis Mukwege has been jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. This article was first published in 2013. 
 
 Denis Mukwege is a gynaecologist working in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He and his colleagues have treated about 30,000 rape victims, developing great expertise in the treatment of serious sexual injuries. His story includes disturbing accounts of rape as a weapon of war. 
 
 When war broke out, 35 patients in my hospital in Lemera in eastern DR Congo were killed in their beds. 
 
 I fled to Bukavu, 100km (60 miles) to the north, and started a hospital made from tents. I built a maternity ward with an operating theatre. In 1998, everything was destroyed again. So, I started all over again in 1999. 
 
 It was that year that our first rape victim was brought into the hospital. After being raped, bullets had been fired into her genitals and thighs. 
 
 I thought that was a barbaric act of war, but the real shock came three months later. Forty-five women came to us with the same story, they were all saying: "People came into my village and raped me, tortured me." 
 
 Denis Mukwege Image copyright Panzi Hospital Rape victims have sometimes filled most of the 350 beds in Denis Mukwege's hospital. Funded by Unicef and other donors, it also operates a mobile clinic and microfinance initiative. He has received many international prizes, including in 2008 the UN Human Rights Prize. He was named African of the Year in 2009. Listen to Denis Mukwege on Outlook Browse the Outlook podcast archive More from BBC World Service 
 
 Other women came to us with burns. They said that after they had been raped chemicals had been poured on their genitals. 
 
 I started to ask myself what was going on. These weren't just violent acts of war, but part of a strategy. You had situations where multiple people were raped at the same time, publicly - a whole village might be raped during the night. In doing this, they hurt not just the victims but the whole community, which they force to watch. 
 
 The result of this strategy is that people are forced to flee their villages, abandon their fields, their resources, everything. It's very effective. 
 
 We have a staged system of care for victims. Before I undertake a big operation we start with a psychological examination. I need to know if they have enough resilience to withstand surgery. 
 
 Then we move to the next stage, which might consist of an operation or just medical care. And the following stage is socio-economic care - most of these patients arrive with nothing, no clothes even. 
 
 We have to feed them, we have to take care of them. After we discharge them they will be vulnerable again if they're not able to sustain their own lives. So we have to assist them on socio-economical level - for example through helping women develop new skills and putting girls back in school. 
 
 The fourth stage is to assist them on a legal level. Often the patients know who their assailants were and we have lawyers who help them bring their cases to court. 
 
 In 2011, we witnessed a fall in the number of cases. We thought perhaps we were approaching the end of the terrible situation for women in the Congo. But since last year, when the war resumed, cases have increased again. It's a phenomenon which is linked entirely to the war situation. 
 
 The conflict in DR Congo is not between groups of religious fanatics. Nor is it a conflict between states. This is a conflict caused by economic interests - and it is being waged by destroying Congolese women. 
 
 When I was coming home after a trip outside the country I found five people waiting for me. Four of them had AK-47 guns, the fifth had a pistol. 
 
 Speech to the UN (Sept 2012) Image copyright AFP "I would have liked to also say, 'I have the honour of being part of the international community that you represent here,' but I cannot say that. How can I say this to you - representatives of the international community - when the international community has shown fear and a lack of courage during these 16 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?" Read an English transcript of the speech Watch the speech 
 
 They opened the gate and got in my car, pointing their weapons at me. They got me out of my car and as one of my guards tried to rescue me they shot him down. He was killed. 
 
 I fell down and the attackers continued firing bullets. I can't really tell you how I survived. 
 
 Then they left in my car without taking anything else. 
 
 I found out afterwards that my two daughters and their cousin were at home. They had been made to go into the living room where the attackers were sitting, waiting for me. During all that time they pointed their guns, their weapons at my daughters. It was terrible. 
 
 I only saw the attackers for just a few seconds and I couldn't tell who these people were. I also can't say why they attacked me - only they know. 
 
 After the attack, Dr Mukwege fled with his family to Sweden, then to Brussels, but he was persuaded to return to Congo last month. 
 
 I was inspired to return by the determination of Congolese women to fight these atrocities. 
 
 These women have taken the courage to protest about my attack to the authorities. They even grouped together to pay for my ticket home - these are women who do not have anything, they live on less than a dollar a day. 
 
 Image copyright Physicians for Human Rights Image caption The welcoming parade at Kavumu airport, Bukavu, in January 
 
 After that gesture, I couldn't really say no. And also, I am myself determined to help fight these atrocities, this violence. 
 
 My life has had to change, since returning. I now live at the hospital and I take a number of security precautions, so I have lost some of my freedom. 
 
 When I was welcomed back by the women, they told me they would ensure my security by taking turns to guard me, with groups of 20 women volunteering in shifts, day and night. 
 
 They don't have any weapons - they don't have anything. 
 
 But it is a form of security to feel so close to the people you are working with. Their enthusiasm gives me the confidence to continue my work as usual. 
 
 Denis Mukwege spoke to Outlook on the BBC World Service. Listen back to the interview via iplayer or browse the Outlook podcast archive. 
 
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– Marrion P'Udongo is recognized simply as "pastor" by many and has pulled off a laundry list of heroic acts in the war-torn Republic of the Congo, including assisting child soldiers and rape victims and helping manage an orphanage, per NBC News. His other nickname, the "Schindler of Congo," came about after a 2003 massacre of ethnic Hema residents in Bunia by ethnic Lendu militiamen: P'Udongo housed 70 or so frightened Hema for about a week, but militiamen forced their way in and threatened to kill everyone—until P'Udongo successfully pleaded for their lives and they were all brought to safety. But now the people's savior is the one who needs help as he languishes in Uganda hooked up to a dialysis machine, the result of a failing kidney he received in a 2011 transplant. But while a new donor has been secured and a hospital in India with a high success rate for his type of procedure is ready to perform it, the $35,000 price tag is overwhelming for P'Udongo, who makes $200 a month, NBC notes. The people he's touched are doing whatever they can to help him: The same reporter who helped fundraise for the pastor in 2011 is doing it again. "Look at the world right now … you don't see a lot of really good people left," Bryan Mealer says on Generosity.com. "This is one of them." P'Udongo even has a friend in Hollywood: Ben Affleck, who founded advocacy group Eastern Congo Initiative and met P'Udongo in 2008, when the actor visited northeastern Congo. Meanwhile, P'Udongo continues to fight, mostly for his wife, four kids, an orphan he's taken in, and all the others he advocates for. "If I am not there … who will fill that gap?" he says to NBC. "No, I should not die now … There's still a lot to do." (Read what Bryan Mealer wrote about the pastor in 2011 for the Huffington Post.)