“I’ve seen a few horrors,” I said. “More than a few.”
“Perhaps you have, but not like this. Nothing like this, believe me, Alex.”
Part Three
CAMP
Chapter 79
SO FAR, ADANNE’S connections were very good, and I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently she got things done.
It took her only one brief conversation on the tarmac, and then one radio call, before the African Union sergeant in charge allowed us to board the C-130 freighter the following morning.
We were in the air by six, the only civilian passengers on a plane carrying millet, sorghum, and cooking oil to Darfur.
The murder investigation continued, and now it was airborne and seemed to have more purpose than ever.
I borrowed a situation map from one of the flight crew and saw that Darfur was about the size of Texas. If I was going to get anywhere, I had to run with a few assumptions – one, that the Tiger had been in Nyala at the time of the massacre of the Shol family, and two, that Adanne’s information was correct, and he might still be culling boys from camps for displaced persons in the area.
Given all of that, how far would he have gotten in the past eighteen hours? That was the next question that had to be answered.
During the flight, Adanne patiently told me much about Darfur and Sudan, and though she spoke in a low-key manner, there was no disguising the horrors – especially against women and children, thousands of whom were raped, then branded to increase their humiliation.
“Rape has become such a cruel weapon in this civil war. Americans have no idea, Alex. They couldn’t possibly.
“Sometimes the Janjaweed will break a woman’s legs first so she can’t possibly escape and will be an invalid for the rest of her life. They like to flog victims; to break fingers one by one; to pull out fingernails,” Adanne said in a voice that barely got above a whisper.
“Even some of the ‘peacekeepers’ are guilty of rape, and of using the refugees as prostitutes. What’s worse, the government of Sudan is behind much of it. You won’t believe what you will see here, Alex.”
“I want to see it,” I told her. “I made a promise to a man in Sierra Leone that I would tell Americans what was happening here.”
Chapter 80
“THIS IS KALMA.” She pointed at a yellow triangle on the map. “It’s one of the largest camps in Darfur. I’d wager that the Tiger knows it well. Everyone around here does.”
“What are the other colors?” I asked.
There were more than a hundred camps in all, Adanne explained. Green meant inaccessible during rainy season, and blue was closed to nonmilitary aid organizations, based on current fighting conditions. Kalma’s yellow meant open.
That’s where we would start our Tiger hunt.
“And these?” I ran a finger over a line of red flame icons. There were dozens of them.
Adanne sighed before answering my question.
“Red is for villages that are confirmed destroyed. The Janjaweed burn everything they can – food stores, livestock. They put human and animal carcasses down the wells, too.
Anything to ensure that no one comes back. In Arabic, Janjaweed means‘man with a gun on horseback!”
These were the Arab militias, widely believed to be supported by the current government in a vicious campaign to make life as unsafe as possible for black Africans in the region. An unthinkable two million people had already fled their homes and more than two hundred thousand had died. Two hundred thousand that we knew of.
It was Rwanda all over again. In fact, it was worse. This time the whole world was watching and doing almost nothing to help.
I looked out my porthole window at the Sahel landscape twelve thousand feet below.
It was actually quite beautiful from up here – no civil war, no genocide, no corruption. Just an endless, peaceful stretch of tan, sculpted earth.
Which was a lie, of course.
A beautiful, very diabolical lie.
Because we were about to land in hell.
Chapter 81
AT THE BASE in Nyala, we secured a ride out to the Kalma Camp with a five-truck convoy carrying sacks of grain and crates of F75 and F100 baby formula. Adanne seemed to know everyone here, and I found it interesting to watch her work. Her gracious smile, not her attractiveness, seemed to be her secret. I saw it succeed again and again with people who were overworked and stressed to their limits.
Camp seemed like the wrong word once I actually saw Kalma.
Yes, there were tents and lean-tos and stick-straw huts, but they stretched for miles and miles. One hundred and fifty thousand people lived here. That’s a city. And one that was overflowing with unbearable suffering and heartbreak and death by everything from Janjaweed attacks, to dysentery, to childbirth without drugs, and usually without a doctor or midwife.
Around the camp’s center were some signs of permanence, at least. A small open-air school was in session, and there were a few walled buildings with corrugated tin roofs, where limited food supplies were still available.
Adanne knew exactly where we should go first. She took me to the United Nations’ Commission on Refugees tent, where a young soldier agreed to do some translating for us, although many of the refugees knew bits of English.
The soldier’s name was Emmanuel, and he had the same kind of sinewy height, dark skin, and deep-set eyes I’d seen on many of the so-called Lost Boys who had emigrated to DC over the years. Emmanuel spoke English, Arabic, and Dinka.
“Most of the people here are Fur,” he told us as we started down a long dirt avenue. “And eighty percent are abused women.
“Most of their men are dead, or looking for work, or for resettlement,” added Adanne. “This is the most vulnerable city in the world, Alex. No exception. You will find out for yourself.”
It was easy to see what Adanne and Emmanuel were talking about. Most of the people we found to speak with were women who were working outside their shelters. They reminded me of Moses and his friends, because of how eager they were to share their terrible stories with someone from the outside.
One woman, Madina, cried as she wove a straw mat and told us about coming to Kalma. The Janjaweed had destroyed her village and killed and mutilated her husband, her mother, and father. Most of her neighbors and friends were burned alive in their huts.
Madina had arrived with three children and literally nothing else. Tragically, all three of her children had died at the camp.
The sleeping mats she made were in demand because of dooda worms, which came out of the ground at night and burrowed into the refugees’ skin. Whatever she earned went toward onions and grain, though she hoped to have enough to buy a patch of cloth one day. She’d been wearing the same toab since she’d gotten here.
“When was that?” Adanne asked.
“Three years ago” was Madina’s sad answer. “One for each of my children.”
Chapter 82
“I HAVEN’T LOST sight of your Tiger,” Adanne said as we trudged along. “He recruits boys here. It’s easy for him.”
“You were right about the horror, Adanne,” I told her.
I was eager to speak with people in as many sectors of the camp as possible, but when we came to one of the few medical tents, I had to stop again. I had never seen such a bewildering sight in my entire life.
The tent was overflowing with sick and dying patients, two and more to a cot. Bodies were jigsaw-puzzled into every available space. To make matters worse, long lines extended outside, at least three hundred very sick women and children waiting for treatment, or for a better place to die.