These woman and their children were displaced by October 2008 fighting between forces of rebel Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda and the Congolese government and fled to the provincial capital of Goma, where they have taken refuge with several other families in a Methodist church and adjacent school. Action by Churches Together International has provided food, non-food items, and shelter support for these families. A quarter of a million people have been newly displaced by fighting in the eastern Congo, where some 5.4 million have died since 1998 from war-related violence, hunger and disease. .