UNHCR Compound, Iriba

We woke nice and early this morning, about four o’clock to be precise. Some blooming cockerel was courting his lady friends, just outside the window. I know SPANA is meant to be all about protecting animals, but I swear, a couple more hours of ‘Little Red Rooster’, and we’ll be enjoying roast chicken for dinner.
But at least it got us up and away nice and early, off to see the refugee camps around Iridimi.

Of course you have to have a detachment of the local Coldstream Guards along for ‘security’ – which means a lot of hanging around and gesticulating, handshaking and kissing before we finally hit the road.

The landscape is a little softer here, more trees and more grass on undulating terrain – with occasional flashes of vivid colour as bee-eaters, ‘superb starlings’ and other unnamed jewels dart amongst the brush on either side. There seem fewer villages as well – yet every so often we pass a herd of sleek, shiny goats, knee-deep in thick grass, while the goat herds wave enthusiastically at our trucks.
Then finally we’re in Iridimi camp, bleak and desolate, yet with striking images as women in fabulous coloured robes struggle to move their livestock or ride donkeys through the swirling sand.

The wind is a real curse – modern cameras just do not like being filled with fine, wind-blown dust, and when one can taste it, and feel it in your eyes and nose, it’s scary to think what it must be doing to all those tiny little motors and moving parts. Yet, it’s impossible to resist trying to film small, laughing children playing in front of their shacks and donkeys…

Then we have a meeting organised for the ‘sheiks’ of the camp – back in their homes in Darfur they would have been the village headmen – and other members of the camp committee – mostly women.

With quiet dignity they told us of their problems, particularly about their animals, reinforcing, if it was ever necessary, the fundamental truth that these people absolutely rely on their animals. We gently pry from them the symptoms of the many deaths they have suffered. Anthrax is common, but also PPR and Sheep-pox, similar to Smallpox, and just as deadly.

Gradually a picture emerges. They say they are short of water, grazing and firewood, and of course veterinary help when problems occur. But perhaps more worrying, for the first time we are hearing about problems with the local villagers – sometimes ending in violence, and usually aimed at the women.

Afterwards, we head for Touloum, slightly bigger than Iridimi, but with the same sort of problems.

Meanwhile, Simon, who had been eating all sorts of strange things recently, but certainly not fish, gradually went green around the gills and was forced to leave us very suddenly, and was last seen heading rapidly towards the horizon looking for a nice, thick, friendly bush to hide behind.

Once again we heard from the headmen and women the usual list of complaints: water, firewood, animal feed etc. But again, and this time even more vehemently, they complained of the growing hostility from the local villagers. One woman complained that she had been cutting grass to bring back to the camp, when she was attacked, her grass taken, her sickle stolen, but worst of all, they took her beloved donkey.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised – many villagers feel all the aid goes to refugees, while they lose a lot of the best grazing – yet in the midst of all the problems and misery, it is just one extra burden the world could do without.

Jeremy Hulme, CEO SPANA