We returned from Chad, after more than three weeks in the troubled region that includes Darfur and Central African Republic.  We visited our Darfuri friends in some of the refugee camps that are located in Eastern Chad.  They have been living there for five years, and they are barely hanging on to hope, feeling forgotten by the international community. 

Chad has been also going through internal troubles, which cannot be cleanly separated from what is happening in Darfur.  On our way out of the country, we saw and heard about heavy military movement in the East and in the capital, as the government forces prepared for a possible attack by rebel forces.  We did not get out in time to avoid the fighting.  Stuck in a hotel very close to the Presidential Palace, we became witnesses to the coup attempt, which included all out fighting with heavy weaponry from both sides.

The hotel we were holed up in then became a target also, and we were lucky to have just a few French soldiers, who fought off the attack.  On the second day of fighting, the French evacuated us.  The experience of those two days is something we never thought we’d live through, dodging bullets that were just too close for comfort.  It was only two days of unwanted excitement, though. 

The people of Darfur have been enduring horrors we cannot even imagine for the past five years, and the world continues to, in effect, look the other way. 

Please help us change this.   Let me know how we can do more, and ask me about our work at Stop Genocide Now.  Look at video from the camps and of the attack on the capital and our hotel at http://stopgenocidenow.org

Peaz,
Gabriel