When the light breeze lulls in the trees around Djawara, a village in the far east of Chad, the thick stench of rotting corpses becomes unbearable. Locals say 75 of their brothers, fathers and sons are buried in 50 centimetre deep graves in this glade on the village's outskirts, killed they say by men on horses, and by their own neighbours.
The bodies were hastily buried in mid-May, days after a rag-tag group of men armed with guns, spears, and machetes overran the village in a dawn attack. Arrows still lying on the ground around the trees are evidence of the futile fight the villagers said they tried to put up with primitive weapons. Six of the attackers were killed, and two taken prisoner. But the villagers clearly were no match for the better armed attackers. Witnesses interviewed by IRIN said around half of the 74 Djawara men and one woman, were shot and hacked to death while they were gathered together praying among the trees.
A former Djawara resident standing among the remains of his house |
Two stray donkeys are now the only inhabitants of Djawara, which according to meticulous records kept by village elders in tattered notebooks they carefully took with them when they fled, was home to 1334 people before the attacks on 13 April. Smashed clay cooking pots, dozens of single sandals strewn in the sand, and trampled straw fences give some indication of the violence of the struggle that must have taken place before the people fled. And for the villagers who did get away, the threat is far from passed. Standing over the grave where he buried his cousins, showing investigators the shoes left behind as part of the local funeral tradition, Ahmed, 35, who lived in Djawara with his wife and three children before the attacks, said he would certainly be killed for daring to return if the foreigners were not there.
"If I had not come here with you, I would be dead," he told IRIN. Djawara is one among dozens of pillaged villages which do not appear on most maps, but whose names can be reeled off by people in the shantytowns being thrown up by fleeing villagers all over eastern Chad.
Signs of a struggle are evident in Djawara |
CHRONOLOGY OF A CRISIS
Widespread attacks on villages in eastern Chad first started in January, after an attack on Adre by rebels opposed to President Idriss Deby in late December. The rebel attacks prompted the Chadian army to pull back to reinforce key border towns, military intelligence sources told IRIN, leaving vast swathes of the 1000 kilometre border that runs through the open desert between Chad and Sudan completely unprotected.
A Chadian boy fleeing his village taking only what he can carry |
JANJAWID TO BLAME
Yocoub, 48, originally from Amdegi village, fled his home four months ago, since when he has moved another three times, he said because of Janjawid attacks. He left his home village after armed men on horses arrived around 1am, firing into the air, before riding off with all 850 of the village's cattle. With most of his neighbours, Yocoub moved to another village believed to be less vulnerable to attack, even though it happened to be across the border in Sudan.
Arrows used by villagers trying to ward off attackers armed with guns |
Aid agencies are relocating people to relieve pressure on overstretched water sources. Yocoub's tragic story is a common one. And none of the other victims IRIN met suggested a culprit except the Janjawid. But experts say detailed questions about the accent, appearance, clothing and weaponry of their assailants, prove the Chadians are not necessarily describing exactly the same Janjawid as has brought terror to villagers in Sudan. "We use the term Janjawid to describe the militiamen trained, equipped and armed by the Sudanese government who have been used by Khartoum as ground forces in attacks on civilians in Darfur" said Olivier Bercault, a senior researcher with the American NGO Human Rights Watch, and who has investigated the massacres in eastern Chad.
"Now we have people definitely crossing the border with the same equipment as was used in Sudan. It is clear that some of these same Sudanese Janjawid militiamen are also involved in the Chad attacks but we don't yet have sufficient evidence to say that the Chadian attacks are backed by the Sudanese government. We could clearly link the evidence with Khartoum in Darfur, but not in Chad, I mean, not yet," he said. The assailants have even included some men wearing blue Sudanese army uniforms, witnesses said. And identity papers and badges seized from two militiamen killed inside Chad, and seen by IRIN, clearly identified the attackers as members of the Sudanese national army. Adding another more confusing dimension to the mix, Chadians also said their attackers included members of other Chad-based black African ethnic groups, especially the Mimi, Tama, and Ouaddai, as well as various Arab groups. The villagers said they recognised their attackers from around their villages. Some had even prayed together at the same mosque, and were neighbours before the attacks started.
MURKY MOTIVES
The motivations behind the attacks seem to be even more muddied than the identity of the perpetrators. The handful of investigators from the UN and human rights NGOs say they have barely begun the laborious process of gathering testimonials from survivors to try to piece together exactly what happened, and how it fits into the complex ethnic mosaic of the region. The head of the UNHCR office in Goz Beida, Lindell Findlay, said she thinks many of the attacks are part of a "Sudanese land grab".
A nomadic herdsman near Djawara village |
Key in this analysis is whether villages are being occupied, or whether they are just being pillaged. The situation is too insecure for visits of longer than a couple of hours, making a definitive answer difficult. Most of the Chadians IRIN met nonetheless said they believed their villages were occupied, and if not, they would anyway be attacked again as soon as anyone tried to go back. Findlay also said ethnicity is determining which areas are purged and which left in peace.
"The Janjawid is forming alliances with ethnicities sympathetic to them, forming alliances and protective allegiances with those groups," she said, adding that the situation is becoming more confusing because some of the persecuted groups have started forming self defence forces. "It was never a problem before, but now the ethnic issue is starting to poison the mix." This analysis is certainly shared by the displaced villagers themselves, many of who come from the same ethnic group - the Dadjo. "All the other groups have formed an alliance with the Janjawid," said Souleymane, a village elder from Djawara, the scene of massacres in April, and a Dadjo. There are more than 36 ethnicities in the region, he added. "We Dadjo have refused the alliance. Sudan is another country, it is not Chad, so why would we have an alliance with them? And it is an association of Arabs, and the Dadjo are not Arabs either." Several of the other Chadian groups that have agreed to join the Janjawid are not Arab either. But "they are scared of having their cattle stolen if they refuse to join," Souleymane said.
However, aid workers in Goz Beida who asked not to be named, told IRIN they believe the Dadjo might be being targeted by the Janjawid for having close ties to the Masalit people of Darfur, who have been the target of attacks there. The Dadjo reportedly provided most of the shelter and protection to the 200,000 Sudanese refugees that poured out of Sudan until the 12 formal refugee camps were built. In another analysis, provided by an independent human rights investigator who asked not to be named, the attacks are motivated by the same racist ideology which underpins much of the violence the Janjawid has unleashed on black Africans in Sudan. "There are still many unanswered questions about these attacks, but the conclusion is clear: Chadian civilians are in dire need of protection," Peter Takirambudde, Africa director of Human Rights Watch, said in a written statement.
RAINY SEASON FEARS
But protection is likely to be in short supply during the near future for eastern Chad's terrified people, most of whom have already lost everything except their lives. Few believe the Djawara massacre will be the last. And what little outside scrutiny there has been will be absent for the next three months.
Chadians who said they were fleeing before the rains bring impunity to the Janjawid |
But the Janjawid, which uses horses and camels that can easily cross the network of muddy islands, will be in its element, locals say. Fearing an onslaught of attacks even more intense than they have already seen, some Chadians are pre-emptively fleeing their land. Picking their way on donkeys and by foot through a forest of gum trees around 50 kilometres east of the border, one family said it was heading for Goz Beida, before the rainy season made passage impossible. Nervously agreeing to stop their trek for only a few minutes, and glancing over their shoulders as they spoke, the family said they had not yet been attacked. But "there's no point starting the planting, because we would probably have to leave before the crops came up," said one of the men, loaded down with spears and seeds.
MILITARY WANTED
Once the rains have passed, diplomats and aid workers say the fate of people in eastern Chad depends on Chad's government redeploying its soldiers along the border and in villages in the region. Although the government made promises to aid agencies and diplomats that more soldiers would be put on the frontier after presidential elections on 3 May, aid agency officials told IRIN that there has been no evidence of a shift in policy. And when armed horsemen - locals said Janjawid - occupied and looted the village Kou Kou in mid-May, it was left to four jeep loads of Sudanese rebels from the anti-Janjawid SLA group, which shelters in Chad, to try to keep the peace and chase down the 1000 head of cattle the attackers made off with.
Chadian soldier counting a wad of money |
UNFLATTERING COMPARISONS
No surprise then that most observers are sanguine about Chad's future. A highly placed diplomat in N'djamena described the spiralling process of infighting between clans and ethnic groups that is rending the social fabric in eastern Chad as "a process of Somali-isation".
Children at a camp for displaced in Goroukoum, eastern Chad: would rather be at home. |
However, the Sudanese government is already dragging its feet in negotiations over the details of a UN-led force for Darfur, which the Security Council mission was supposed to get back on track.
Diplomats in N'djamena told IRIN they believe Sudan might hold off on deployment at least until September, and possibly as long as January 2007. They said Sudan is trying to give its militias time to finish their deadly work, in Darfur and Chad.
In the meantime, Chad's persecuted villagers, far from information about the tentative diplomatic process that could hold the only hope for their survival, say their demand is simple: to go home.
"All we want is to work our land," pleaded a villager from Djawara, now squatting in Dogdore. "We just want to live peacefully, to cultivate. But now we cannot, because the Janjawid is there."
CHAD: Neighbours turn on each other at Janjawid's command
NR/CCR
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions