No Hopes For Us

MIA FARROW

If we hear of Eastern Chad at all, it is as a spillover of the genocidal
slaughter in Darfur.. But this swath of land along Darfur¹s border has become
a full-scale catastrophe in its own right, and it is without the immense and
effective humanitarian infrastructure which is sustaining millions of lives
in Darfur.

When I first came here in November 2006, I met Abdullah Idris Zaid, who was
lying in the tiny Goz Beida hospital. It was a terrible month in eastern
Chad. The Janjaweed, Darfur¹s government-backed Arab militias, joined with
Chadian Arab tribes on a rampage of destruction; 60 villages were burned and
scores of people were killed, raped, and mutilated. Mr. Zaid¹s eyes were
gouged out by Janjaweed knives.

This month I found him in the Gouroukoum camp for displaced people. He is 27
years old, a husband and a father. His 4-year old daughter Boushra led him
to the mat outside his hut and gently placed a cup of water in his hands. He
told me that this is the third place they have sought refuge, and still he
does not feel safe.

³They will come again,² said Mr. Zaid. ³They said, Œwe do not want you black
people here.¹ The Janjaweed come from Sudan. If the United Nations does not
send troops into Sudan and stop them, then they will return.²

Eastern Chad has been plunged into chaos and lawlessness. In border towns,
pick-up trucks outfitted with machine guns and loaded with armed, uniformed
men careen through the dusty streets. No one knows who they are: the army,
Chadian rebels, bandits? It makes little difference to the victims of the
escalating violence. For about $5 dollars (U.S.), anyone can get a uniform
in the marketplace. As I passed through the town of Abeche, a U.N. refugee
agency guard was murdered and two staffers severely wounded. About 100
humanitarian vehicles have been highjacked in the last year; aid workers
have been robbed, beaten, abducted and killed.

Eight months ago, 40,000 Chadians had been displaced by Janjaweed attacks.
Today the number is 175,000 and rising. People have fled from their burning
villages and the fields that sustained them to squalid camps across Eastern
Chad. ³Mortality rates of children under five are double what is accepted as
the threshold for an emergency,² says Johanne Sekkenes, a Doctors Without
Borders program director. ³The situation here is massively deteriorating.
The needs are huge. Assistance has been too little, and it comes too late.²

There have been years of debate as to how the tide of violence engulfing the
region can be stemmed. Until recently, the excuse for inaction was the
steadfast resistance of the Sudanese government to U.N. peacekeeping
presence. Sudan¹s recent consent to a limited force under African Union
command comes in the wake of countless broken promises and falls far short
of what is needed. Nonetheless, it leaves the onus squarely on other
countries that have the power to contribute troops, but lack the political
will to do so.

And so the cacophony of voices continues, deliberating as to whether and how
a force should be dispatched, and who should contribute the resources and
troops. No one seems to be listening to the most important voice of all‹that
of the people of Darfur and Eastern Chad, ringing loud and clear from
refugee camps across the region.

Oumda al Fatih, is the leader of 20,000 Darfurians at Goz Amir refugee camp.
Between the camp and the Darfur border there is nothing but the ashes of
destroyed villages. ³Twice, Janjaweed from Sudan came here and attacked us,²
he told me. The refugees had fled these attackers before, but now they were
far from home. With no idea where to find water in the unfamiliar desert,
they did not even try to run. ³We sat on the ground and we held our children
and waited for two days. And we were thinking, ŒNo hopes for us. No hopes
for us.¹

³We are the ones being killed, tortured and raped. We are the ones who have
lost everything. We are refugees with no freedom, no rights, not enough
food, no fields; we are living in terror. We accept the U.N. troops. We are
asking for help.²

This is the voice of the people of Darfur and Eastern Chad. It calls
urgently for an international force with the resources and mandate necessary
to protect defenseless civilians and the aid workers who are struggling to
sustain them. These desperate pleas are what we should be hearing and
responding to‹urgently.

Ms. Farrow, a UNICEF ambassador, has just returned from her sixth trip to
Darfur and its borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.

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