On 21 February 2025, people holding large yellow containers queued at a water point in Bukavu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. A mass burial for victims of clashes had taken place outside the city the previous day, and armed M23 personnel guarded public spaces after the takeover. The photograph records not a strategic map of war, but the order required to obtain water in the ordinary life immediately after it.
The line should not be turned into a comforting story of resilience. Residents needed water they could carry, not a symbol. With household life constrained by container size and the flow at a single point, waiting became the time through which each person absorbed the insecurity that conflict imposed on infrastructure.