Buried deep in the vast equatorial forest that carpets most of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kisangani was once a pulsating oasis of commerce and city life. Traders flocked to its port on the sprawling river Congo to buy and sell coffee; the cafe-lined avenues were crowded with university students.
But after two years in the jaws of a complex civil war pitting government against rebels - and rebels against one another - Kisangani is on the brink of disaster. With four armies camped within 200 kilometres, the city has become a jungle enclave. The only access is by air, food prices have soared and living standards plummeted. Around one million citizens are packed into the area around the city.
Just one fragile thread is keeping Kisangani alive. The hydroelectricity plant is down to its last working turbine and residents are praying it won't seize up. Most of them do without power anyway. But without clean water - which depends on electricity - the city will die.
"We are very worried," said Mr Walter Stocker of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has flown in parts to prop up the ancient turbine, fearing a cholera epidemic. "Now there is a humanitarian situation. But if that goes down, there will be a full-blown crisis."
The demise of the electricity turbines has uncannily mirrored the crumbling of the Congo over the last two decades. Built by the Belgian colonists in the 1950s, the plant was upgraded by dictator Mr Mobutu Sese Seko in the 1970s when he had money, then left to rot when he had none.
Turbine one seized up just before Mr Mobutu was toppled. Number two went days after the current war started, in August 1998. Turbine three gave up last June when Ugandan and Rwandan troops - supposed allies in the struggle to overthrow President Laurent Kabila - started lobbing shells at each other across the city's rooftops.
Now number three is back on its feet again - but only just. "We're not engineers any more - we're acrobats," said production manager Mr Roger Enzinga. Nobody is quite sure why Uganda and Rwanda fought their proxy war for six days in June. Some say it's because of national ego, others blame trigger-happy generals, others again put it down to economic interest in the diamond-rich area. Now both sides have pulled back to 100 kilometres either side of the city.
Ironically, the spat between friends, which left an estimated 300 soldiers dead, was the biggest set-piece battle of the war so far. But it's the people of Kisangani that have paid the highest price. Six days of shelling and hand-to-hand fighting in the streets destroyed entire neighbourhoods and left 600 dead civilians. Entire families, crouching under mattresses in their homes, were killed by stray bombs.
Prices have soared - diesel costs as much as $4 a litre and a sack of rice which once cost $20 now sells for $100. Almost one in 10 children under five is malnourished. The Ugandans directed their shelling from the city zoo on the north bank of the Tshopo, Kisangani's second river. Under President Mobutu the zoo was filled with crocodiles, monkeys, exotic birds and, of course, the proud leopards that symbolised his corrupt regime.
Now shell cases are littered around the deserted leopard enclosure and the restaurant was ransacked by Ugandan troops. Aid agencies have shied away from eastern Congo, partly out of similar concerns about security. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, will be hoping to draw attention to the hidden plight of the Congolese when she visits the capital, Kinshasa, today and the eastern, rebel-held town of Goma tomorrow.