Congo's bread basket struggles to recover from conflict

Outside Mindouli's war-battered railway station, a relic of French colonial times, a few hawkers set up stalls in the hope of snaring a little cash. [AFP]

"The trains are running again. We have peace," says Didier, the station master at Mindouli, in the Republic of Congo's southern region of Pool.

But a glance at the weeds growing on the line connecting the capital Brazzaville and the port city of Pointe-Noire shows that traffic -- to put it gently -- is not huge.