Work in the Sudan - Chad border area

An eventful fortnight, and things have not been plane sailing, to use a deliberate pun. Our EOD team went to work near to the eastern border with Sudan. This is an area where the effects of the Darfur conflict, including refugees and rebel activity, has spilled into Chadian territory.

Last weekend my team had ensconced itself in a vacant school in Bahai town. We had been sent there to check an area that was cleared a few weeks earlier near the Karivari refugee camp, the northern most refugee camp in Chad, managed by the International Rescue Committee and UNHCR. We found nothing at Karivari and decided to leave Bahai as soon as we could, to avoid getting trapped by overflowing wadis. Mother Nature had other plans; that weekend the heavens opened and we were trapped because the exit road was flooded.

(above) None Shall Pass. A wadi, passable only 24 hours previously, has been blocked off by recent rainfall.

(below) This is what happens if you try to cross a swollen wadi too soon. The truck was toppled by the force of the current. We decided to wait for it to reduce. After 3 hours, an army pickup was the first to succeed in crossing. I was napping but woken by the sound of the celebratory gunfire from its cannon, and the crowd whooping with delight.

That weekend the supply aircraft could not reach us due to high winds and I had to delve into reserve rations. The supply of cans, and the occasional perishable like potato and onion, which I purchase in the capital is an excellent alternative to 'going local'. Although I have sustained myself on local food in several parts of the world, it is often sensible to stick to a diet that your stomach knows. That same day the Cessna broke down and throughout the week no resupply reached us.

By Thursday night my 'decent nosh' emergency supplies had dwindled and the goat stew seemed inevitable. I decided to buy a chicken and killed it as I had been taught at Sandhurst, by pulling its head clean off between the V of two fingers and then asked the cook to feather and gut it. My intention had been to go to the team that evening and dine with them after presenting the chicken. Unfortunately my slaughter method was not Halal and the bird was politely declined. In any case it tasted absolutely dreadful so the poor bird's life was wasted in vain. I went without that night rather than impose myself on the team's meal, feeling a little silly for forgetting the cultural sensitivities in a fairly pious country.

The last time I had to economise food was exactly the same time last year in Sri Lanka; most 'staple' supplies including flour, potatoes and eggs ran out for a week in early September which was cut off from supply. We were not alone; 600,000 people in Jaffna were trapped. The seas were ravaged by naval combat between the Sri Lanka Navy and the Sea Tigers, the road routes were blocked by two active front lines where the Tamil Tigers and Sri Lankan army had it out and all public air services were suspended. There was no way out or in, except for military supplies, for several weeks. 54,000 IDPs would be displaced by the conflict and life and business as normal stopped. We helped to distribute the last of the WFP stocks to IDP distribution centres and then had to consider our own supplies as it was clear that all food in Jaffna had been bought by those that could afford the inevitable price hikes. The only consumable commodity that did not run out, I believe, was beer which fuelled several expatriates until around November, by which time humanitarian flights had resumed and I was sneaking bottles of wine up via Sri Lankan air force Antonovs. (We also had a goat called Linda, however supplies got through before resorting to slaughtering our house pets.) Helaena sent up three huge bags of commodities from the US Embassy. Later Kim Parsons sent up a freezer box of goodies, including 8 cans of Boddingtons and a jar of Jaffna Lime Pickle as a twisted joke.

Back to Chad and 2007.. and last Friday morning in Bahai.

We drove to a village and some of the generous villagers provided us with a delicious breakfast of rice, sugar and camel milk. Rice pudding! I ate a little with the team and we continued to work; that day we would find 11 x 107mm rockets in the vicinity of the village, one about 100m from housing. None of this had been reported to the authorities and as such, it was thought that there had been no battles in Bahai. Later that day my flight to the capital was delayed again because of an emergency evacuation of military casualties from an anti-tank mine accident, hundreds of kilometres away in the Tibetsi mountains. Yesterday the new aircraft, a luxurious and spacious King Air twin engine, picked me up from Bahai. After half an hour the pilot told me he had to divert to collect casualties from Abeche.

'Casualties'

As you can see, they do not seem to be injured and it seemed to me that they were going on holiday. But that is the way things work in countries such as Chad, ranked as the most corrupt in the world (it doesn't seem to be because it is so poor); ministers' relatives and the exulted tax the system for whatever they can get out of it, for as long as they can, which is often brief.

Most of our UXO guides are children, but this week for the first time we were led to dangerous items by girls.

Chad has a Muslim majority; they are a hospitable and somewhat pious people, moderate from what I have seen yet dilligent in their prayers. Society is largely patriachal and womenfolk have a very limited 'public footprint'. These girls played their part in helping their community.

We drive around asking people if they know of anything left behind after battles. Sometimes whole battle areas are missed because there is no passage of information. We have destroyed a tonne of ammunition in Bahai this week, all of which was not reported.

A typical developing country ammunition store- radio chargers with vehicle spare parts and old mortar bombs

See the above example. We were told to inspect the gendarmerie store in the middle of town and were met with this image of disarray. Clearance organisations the world over are dealing with this sort of thing; forgotten stores with badly kept ammunition ranging from bullets to surface to air missiles. Many governments are concerned about the poor storage of ammunition and have attributed large budgets to weapons non-proliferation. A shoulder launched missile shot down a Stealth fighter in 1999 and there have been attacks on BA flights with the same weapons. Here, though, are over 100 Soviet mortar bombs. It has been stored with a small padlock for security in a country where Al Qaeda operate.

They were in such a bad state that the explosive failed to explode. But still, the poor state of storage and security meant that their destruction had humanitarian value. (In 2005, in Battambang, Cambodia, a similar store exploded spreading dangerous items for 20 km and badly damaging a village as well as killing several people. An ammunition store in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, also exploded a few years ago and the clean-up is probably a future task.)

This fired rocket had either been moved into the village to get our attention, or nobody had thought to report it.

Our work has brought us into conflict with many participants in the many internecine, inter-tribal and international conflicts that Chad has taken part in over the years. Conflict is a way of life here. Many people have weapons and it is hard to distingiush regular soldiers from rebels.

An image of Africa conflict- the pickup, the RPG, the machine gun

One day, after we destroyed a shell and whilst we were inspecting the crater, a white pickup raced towards us. Someone in white garb got out and I managed to understand their French- we had created a 'disorder'. They had thought that there was rebel artillery fire. No, I countered, we had express permission of the local military commander and the sous-prefet (mayor). And, if they thought it was artillery, why where they driving towards the explosion with a child in the back of their vehicle? After this my French failed me and I uttered 'je ne parle pas francais'. Of course I am quite plausable with that phrase so the said person seemed to take offence. I gestured towards the chief Chadian, Rama, who was already getting heated, saying that we were 'helping the children' and they were 'interfering'. It nearly turned into a shoving match between Rama and this irratated person, which is always uncomfortable when you cannot speak their language, everyone has weapons and you are miles from any semblance of order. I then sensed something about the group that had arrived; there was a high ranking officer who although calm, seemed to let the person who talked to me so rudely just carry on, despite the fact we had acted within our rights. The person in white turned out to be a village king; in particular, later we learned he was a very well connected VIP.

After shaking hands and departing the scene having been told to stop work, and with Rama incensed at their unhelpful attitude, we prepared to leave Bahai. Before our planned departure the following morning, the sous-prefet apologised to me and asked us to carry on working there. Then a pickup crammed with heavily armed soldiers came. A highly ranked officer got out and greeted Rama and I (the soldiers were surprisingly wearing the same fatigue dress, so I knew this was an important commander). It was the local gendarmerie commander, and he too apologised for the 'visitors' who were 'drunk yesterday'. The bloke in white, the village king, actually tagged along to watch us work later that day. He was somewhat sheepish and keen to help. He turned out to be the president's nephew and in the end was an 'alright lad'. One day we returned from work and my driver gave a surprised gasp- there was a person sleeping on his bed with some sort of bong next to him. It was the president's nephew again. He has since become an informal part of our group; he plays cards with the team most nights and brought me an ice cold coca cola one day. Not a bad chap, but not one to upset.

Not so amusing was the arrival of irregular soldiers to our camp. Arriving in the most battered pickup I have seen yet, they unfurled their mattresses outside the room next to mine. I started to worry about being seen as in league with armed groups which was not a good idea for a westerner, as well as the security of our equipment. No doubt they would want to borrow this and that. As I voiced my complaints to my interpretor, he told me to be quiet- these people could speak english because they were from Sudan. They were rebels fighting the janjaweed. Nevertheless I aired my concerns and the ever helpful sous-prefet moved them on with no fuss, just a friendly wave goodbye.

The rebel equipment was old, decrepit and their vehicle had clearly had been hit several times. I don't know why I found it so odd, but they seemed like perfectly normal people. When I met a Tamil Tiger leader in Sri Lanka, he seemed intense and quietly menacing. These guys were quite the opposite; they looked like your average laid-back African with whom you would have banter with over chai. They struck a friendly ambience whilst reclining on their carpets and generally taking it easy- after presumably causing havoc the other side of the border, perhaps even harrassing African Union troops. Then I realised how naive I was- even the sous-prefet had lived for decades in this combat zone, and many local people were willing or unwilling combatants at some time. The sous prefet told me he used to be a deminer and he had been trained to shoot down planes in the '70s.

The guy on the left is Idriss. He is one of the older members of my team and seems to be the team character. Here he holds up the head of a Gazelle recently shot by the soldiers for supper. The chap in the middle is a gendarme who guided us to the location of a couple of dangerous items one morning.

The guy on the right is Rama Inne, the senior Chadian that I work with. He's about 40 years old and has been to the Commando school in the Congo, is parachute trained, has fought for the Chadian Presidential Guard, survived an anti tank mine blast where 6 other people were killed and carries either a .357 (under his t shirt) or a Kalashnikov. He has received training from the US Navy SEALS as well as the French military. He's a nice guy and is a Colonel in the army, and hearing him regale me with tales of Chad's many layers of conflict is humbling. In the west, we don't realised how we have been spoiled by the absence of conflict. Rama says that Chadians are 'les specialistes du lutte de l'afrique' or Africa's combat specialists. That says something.

A gendarmerie team with my EOD chaps. In the rear is the perrenial symbol of conflict throughout the developing world- the pickup truck mounted with RPGs slung off the side. As you can see, uniform is not standardised throughout.

This picture that came out somewhat better than I expected; the view across a dry wadi between Iriba and Tourgba. It must have been a fluke, like the one I took of David Pickersgill skiing 4 years ago when he was somehow not in snowplough and looked in calm control.

I revise the team after finding a rare squash head projectile.

Sunrise as seen from my campbed, about 0510hrs, Bahai.

The sight that greeted each mornings for much of last week- a row of hanging cow flesh, hung out to cure (and inevitably attracting hundreds of flies). This is one reason I avoided eating with the team.

Our home in Delhi that I can't wait to get back to.. Helaena has prepared a luxurious apparentment, though apparently our dog Lhotse has been chewing through the upholstery and no doubt our attention seeking non-declawed cat has been ripping through the sofa covers.

This T55 was one of many abandoned hulks north of Iriba. The ammunition had been burned out inside the tank. Rama stands on top after conducting a quick visual search.

The hospitality of Chadians sometimes slows our work down quite a lot. After about 5 minutes of al hamdu li laah greetings, and a session of tea drinking, we were physically prevented from leaving this village in Erre, north of Iriba. A plate of pulped maize and animal fat gravy was brought to Rama and I for our consumption.

Two symbols of Chad- hot, sweet, ginger infused chai, and a traditional dagger (often used as a can opener).