When Vargas Llosa woke up in the Congo War

On the night of 25 October 2008, Mario Vargas Llosa — then 72 years old — was on the verge of falling into the hands of the Congolese rebel militias led by General Laurent Nkuanada. The largest and most powerful guerrillas in the African country had left a trail of murders, rapes and torture in their advance to Goma, the capital of the North Kivu region, after snatching the nearby city of Rutshuru from the Congolese Army.