As a schoolgirl in Edinburgh, Louise Linton used to dream of escaping to Africa. Her ambition was to work somewhere remote, far removed from her comfortable life at Fettes College, Tony Blair’s alma mater and one of Scotland’s most prestigious schools. “I was looking for something different. The deeper and darker the better,” she says.

Linton, now an actress based in Los Angeles, got more than she bargained for when she left school and headed for Kasaba Bay, a fishing village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Zambia. Within three months of her arrival in 1999, her African idyll, a few miles from the Congolese border, was invaded by Rwandan-backed rebels and she found herself caught up in the second Congo war, one of the continent’s bloodiest conflicts.

Now, as war rages once again in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Linton, 27, watches events unfold on CNN, glad of the distance but fearing for the safety of her friends. “I’m following developments closely. The last time there were no media covering the fighting in my part of Africa,” she says. “This time people have no excuse for not knowing and doing what they can to help.”

Linton’s work in Zambia began as a gap-year project. She went to Kasaba Bay, in the Nsumbu national park, to teach English and educate the villagers about contraception to curtail the spread of HIV. Linton lived in a room in a dilapidated fishing lodge that used to belong to Kenneth Kaunda, the former Zambian president.

The 62 villagers lived in mud huts with corrugated iron roofs and made a living fishing the rich waters of Lake Tanganyika. Linton spent her spare time working with the men, catching tigerfish and golden perch, learning to gut and cook them for supper.

At night she heard bursts of gunfire from across the lake. She listened to villagers talk about the battle between the Congolese national army, under the leadership of President Laurent Kabila, and Hutu rebels who fled to the Congo after the Rwandan genocide in 1994. A steady stream of refugees, fleeing the fighting, passed through Kasaba Bay, whispering tales of brutality. “I was aware of the war across the border but I could not have anticipated it spilling over into our village,” she says.

The first sign of trouble came in the dead of night, when three boats carrying people from the neighbouring village arrived at Kasaba Bay. “They had escaped when Congolese rebels ransacked their village. They spoke of men brandishing AK-47s, shooting people and raping women.”

Terrified that the rebels would continue their rampage through the jungle, the villagers switched off their generator and extinguished candles. “We had to be quiet,” says Linton. “Sound travels for miles across the lake and we didn’t want them knowing we were there.”

A week later, they were discovered. Out of the darkness came the sounds of encroaching forces and Linton, along with all the villagers, was forced to leave her room and hide out in the jungle. Crouching behind a tree, she could hear someone getting closer. “There were two men, about 25ft away. I was worried they might hear my breathing. My heart was hammering,” she says.

The rebels moved on. When the villagers crept back to their homes at dawn, they found them ransacked and damaged. Two game wardens had been shot dead.

The Congolese raids on the village became a nightly ordeal. Linton lost count of the times she stumbled into the jungle to hide. Over several months more people died. “I had expected Africa to be challenging,” she says. “But this was violent and raw. I was in constant fear for my life. At the same time, it became routine. Getting out of bed to hide in the jungle was just what we did to survive.”

Back home in Edinburgh, Linton’s family knew nothing about the danger she faced. “There was no way of communicating with the outside world. We had radios to communicate with neighbouring villages, but no telephones or internet. I was concerned about what my family might be hearing but I realised that they wouldn’t know anything about it.”

It was another six months before Linton left Kasaba Bay. “Parting from the villagers was unbearable,” she says. “I didn’t know if I would ever see them again.”

Returning to her family’s home in the affluent suburb of Murrayfield felt surreal. Linton’s father and brother and sister — her mother died when she was 14 — were astonished when they learned about her experiences, as were her friends. “Nobody in Britain seemed to know anything about the war. They found it all a bit unbelievable,” she says.

A little later Linton moved to Los Angeles, where she studied for a degree in journalism at Pepperdine University in Malibu before switching to acting. She won a part in CSI:NY, followed by a small role in Lions for Lambs, starring Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep. She will also appear in The Echo, an independent horror film due out in 2009.

Her Hollywood life is a world away from her experiences in Africa. “It’s the opposite end of the spectrum,” she says. “I feel privileged to have had both experiences. It makes me understand how hard life is for people in other places.”

Earlier this year she signed up with the Gondobay Manga Foundation, a charity founded by the former Grey’s Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington to fund projects in Africa. She has also written a novel, Freedom Rising, based on her time in Zambia.

Linton is now looking for an opportunity to return to Africa. Reports of more than 250,000 people fleeing their homes in the face of escalating violence have brought back memories of the villagers she left behind. “I would love to go back, maybe work with the United Nations or another charity. A lot of people of my generation might not be aware of the history of warfare in central Africa but I have seen how it affects people’s daily lives and I don’t want to forget that.”

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