Refugee girls at Breidjing camp, eastern Chad. Photo by UNHCR/H. CAUX
In this blog from Chad, freelance Reuters journalist Gabriela Matthews reports on the recruitment of Sudanese refugees from camps near Darfur by armed groups. Life is tough for everyone in the camps, including aid workers.I went to Hadjer Hadid in eastern Chad twice during the month I spent in the country. A lot of NGOs are based there, including the French relief agency Pr'miere Urgence, the Red Cross, MSF Holland, Oxfam (which is looking after water and sanitation in the camps) and CORD (which is providing education in partnership with the U.N. children's agency UNICEF).
I have a lot of admiration for NGO staff here. They work in the harshest and most stressful of conditions. Everyone is worried about what will happen during the upcoming elections. Mind you, it's only speculation in a place where by 10am you're already tired out due to the heat, the never-ending dust and the sand flying around. The searing sun is so strong that there aren't even any mosquitoes.
Yet they still find the time and the energy to be welcoming and kind. All the aid workers are trying to piece together the puzzle of disparate security incidents. Everyone's trying to work out what's going to happen and how best to protect staff.
They are well aware they've been left alone so far. But they also know the situation could change at any minute. The wrong move and any association with the wrong people can swing things. And these are mistakes people simply can't make if they're to keep their workers safe.
Hadjer Hadid is in a strategic position, only around 30 miles from Adre, and on a clear road from Goz-Beida up to the axis. Anything can happen here. It's even close enough to the Sudanese border for planes to be able to attack. Nobody knows what will happen, but humanitarian workers are seriously considering whether they should evacuate or not.
REFUGEE RECRUITMENTThe recent recruitment of Sudanese refugees from the camps has only added to the problems. In mid-March, a number of rebels reportedly came from Sudan and started recruiting people in the camps. Some say it was by force, but others say a payment had been made to people to join the Sudanese rebels against the government-backed janjaweed militias. When the time for enrolment came, those who had been paid and didn't want to go were apparently 'convinced' by force.
I keep hearing the same thing over and over again. More than 2,000 people have been recruited from Breidjing and Treguine camps, and recruitment is going on in most camps. Some say more than 5,000 have joined the rebels.
It seems incredible for a population that has fled from the rebels to suddenly turn around and join their cause. But I'm told by someone working with the refugees: "They are not joining the janjaweed; they are joining the rebels fighting the janjaweed." Nobody puts a name to the rebels that came to the camp, but everyone seems to agree they are Sudanese.
I go to talk to the prefect of the village. "I haven't seen anything," he says. Although he has a concerned look on his face, his eyes tell me he's a well-versed politician. I ask him how it's possible for all the police guarding the camp to miss hundreds of men leaving after being recruited by rebels.
He tells me the camp doesn't have solid boundaries - which is true - so people can leave in all directions. However, I also know that he knows recruitment has been going on. I ask him again: how do you assume all these people left the camp? You've noticed there are no men left in the camp? He has noticed, he says. 'I was walking in the camp yesterday and I could see no men", he admits. And he has been asking himself the same questions.
One woman, who can't be named, has a different story to tell. She's about 18 and is with a small child. Her husband, 19, and her brother, also 19, were both taken more than a week ago. People told her they were taken from the camp market by force. She has no idea where they are.
She knows, however, that there are training camps for the refugees inside Chad, close to the Sudanese border. She has heard that all the refugees are taken to a kilometre or so from where the camp is, given some food, and then made to walk for a day to the camp.
Other people, who were also taken but managed to get away and come back, told her that those who stayed were given military clothes and are being trained. The village of Borota is mentioned, close to the border.
I ask the prefect where all the men are being taken and if he knows about the camp in Borota. He assures me nothing like that happens in his prefecture. But he adds: 'The prefect in Borota has run away and is in hiding, so I don't know what happens in his area.'
TURNING A BLIND EYEIt's interesting how officials are well informed about some things and not about others. There's no point insisting. I found out what I came for. The prefect knows about the recruitment going on in the camps. Not only that, but he has information of the training camps.
This can only mean that Chadian officials are well aware of the recruitment of refugees and are turning a blind eye to it. This tallies with other off-the-record reports I've had from various trusted sources about how the Chadian government has decided to turn ignore what the Sudanese rebels are up to because it's upset with the Sudanese government for supporting the Chadian rebels.
There are so many deals being done that at many levels it's impossible to verify information easily. This is a country like no other I've worked in. Information is scarce and almost everyone has an agenda.
It comes as no surprise when I ask the humanitarian agencies where they're going to be during the elections: they look at one other and smile in a concerned sort of way. It's a strange atmosphere in Chad, and you don't fully appreciate the amount of pressure you function under until you actually leave.
You go to dinner, you go to a leaving party for someone who's been here for a year or so, you laugh at people's jokes, you joke yourself. But you turn around and you're still in Chad and everyone feels the burden.
'This is a place where nothing can surprise me anymore,' one aid worker tells me. 'We've lost 10 of our staff over the last couple of weeks with all this recruitment going on. We really are missing staff, and their relatives have no idea where these men are.'
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