Witness to Darfur

I try to disappear, sliding my hot and sticky body down the back seat of the SUV as it bounces along an unmarked dirt road. I realize for the first time since arriving in Sudan that I am actually terrified. Our cell phones have quit working, and now the VHF radio signal is gone. My companions, part of the relief group, the International Medical Corps (IMC), don’t have to tell me that these could be signs of an impending Janjaweed attack.

Security protocol gives us another 5 minutes before we must turn back from our mission, an assessment of need for a new health care clinic at a village called Kabbum. We have just passed a group of about 15 men in flowing white djellabas, or robes, carrying kalashnikov rifles. I can spot another group of 25 men on camels up ahead. Dina, in charge of this expedition, seems impassive, but when she sees the rifles, she announces, “OK, that’s it. We’re turning back.” She radios the other vehicle in our convoy to do the same. I breathe again, but not for long because, despite the surprising allure of this unfamiliar landscape, filled with baobab trees and exotic wildlife, we soon spot a helicopter in the distance—another bad omen. It is not until we return to the compound in Nyala 90 minutes later that I finally unclench my shoulders.

In the last few days, I have learned a lot about the attacks of the Janjaweed, or Arab militia. They have been armed by the Sudanese government to fight separatist rebels and African agricultural tribes. It is the Janjaweed who are responsible for the genocide here that has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Conflicts that simmered for decades over land and water rights, pitting Arab tribes against African farmers, have erupted into full-blown ethnic cleansing. Since 2003, the Janjaweed have destroyed 75% of Darfur’s African villages. They have displaced two million people and murdered 300,000. An estimated 10,000 people die in the conflict each month.

About 6 months before, sitting in my garden in Aspen, Colorado, looking at the landscape of beauty and privilege around me, I decided I wanted to do more than simply send a check to help the victims of genocide in Darfur. I set out to find a way to get there and bear witness to this tragedy. The old adage, “Be careful what you wish for,” had come true. Here I was, a full-time mother of four, in South Darfur, trying to keep my head down to avoid a bullet. Another cliché goes, “Timing is everything,” and my timing was great. I had arrived in Sudan in the middle of a global political moment, as the United Nations decided to pass on the names of Sudanese war criminals to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The rest of Jane Wells' five-part series, "Witness to Darfur," will run over the next four days.