Across sub-Saharan Africa, women have a one in 13 lifetime chance of dying in pregnancy and childbirth.
In DR Congo’s North Kivu, where the basic kits and tools can be in egregiously short supply, the odds are often far worse.
Like Claudine, Esther Maombi (no relation) was on the point of delivering her baby as she fled the fighting.
But she was not so lucky.
“The clinic had given me an emergency birth kit, which I put in my bag. But we were robbed as we ran,” she says.
Her baby died soon after birth.
The two women tell their experiences - all too commonplace in DR Congo - to Dr Grace Kodindo, an obstetrician and gynaecologist from Chad.
She became something of an iconic figure after appearing in a BBC Panorama documentary Dead Mums Don’t Cry in 2005 about her struggle to stop mothers in her country dying.
It led to her being invited to address the UN and she was awarded for her work in championing the Millennium Development Goal of cutting maternal mortality - particularly in Africa…
Twenty-year-old Yvonne tells Dr Kodindo how she was raped by soldiers from one of the warring militias as she made her way to her parents’ field.
“I hid myself away because I didn’t want anyone to know,” she says.
“Only when I found I was pregnant did my parents send me to the clinic.”
Dr Kodindo knows it would not take much more to transform lives - for example making post-exposure prophylaxis (Pep) kits available, an emergency cocktail of drugs to protect rape victims from infections (including HIV) and unwanted pregnancy.
Even where there is good news, it can be misleading - the first clinic Dr Kodindo visits has very few cases of HIV, and no recorded maternal deaths.
It seems that while some medicines are available here, the ability to keep accurate records may be lacking.
But Dr Kodindo does come across one sign of hope, a story that has not been much reported in the West.
She sees an an army court marshal where soldiers found guilty of rape have their insignia ripped off their uniforms and are handed down life sentences of hard labour by be-gowned judges.
Together, justice and access to better medicine could help the plight of women caught on both front lines.
“By far the biggest casualties of this conflict are civilians - not the fighters. And the women and children suffer the most - their need is greatest,” Dr Kodindo says.
“Reproductive health care must be seen as a frontline priority - not something to think about only after the fighting is over.”