by Lina El Azem

19 June 2007

Assoungha, Chad: For the past eight months, I have been working as a Protection Officer with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Assoungha region of Eastern Chad.  When I arrived in November 2006, we had 15,000 IDPs; now we have 40,000.  Over the past months, the security situation has been worsening due to the conflict in Darfur spilling over and affecting the population living on the border.

My daily tasks include gathering information about the villages of origin of the internally displaced and feasibility of their return, documenting the recruitment of child soldiers, reporting on the situation of IDPs and their needs.  Chad is a very poor country with a long list of basic needs.  One of the most pressing issues in this desert country is that of water, which determines how people move and where they settle.  

Since sexual and gender-based violence is an issue in the camps, we arrange working group sessions with women and children on protection issues.  We try to reinforce women by sensitizing them on their right to protection and obligation to report such violence and hence contribute to the solution.  This is a very sensitive issue in this culture.  Reality is that one cannot change a situation overnight; hence we focus on raising awareness and ensuring that victims have certain rights to make change happen bit by bit.

Before moving to Chad, I worked with refugees and internally displaced persons in Morocco and Syria-Lebanon after the Israeli war.  I have encountered internally displaced persons in many diverse and difficult situations.  In Chad, I was struck by the strength and devotion of the women.  Despite all the hard work they go through on a daily basis – collecting water, wood, caring for the children and family etc – they continue plodding along with no resentment, no expectation of anything better.  

They have nothing, absolutely nothing, other than their colourful garments, smiles and strength to cope that no-one in the developed world has.  This in turn, gives me strength; gave me strength this morning, when I received the news of another child who had died in the fighting:  a 15-year old boy I had interviewed on the border two months ago, a child soldier who joined the fighting to avenge the killing of his mother.

Lina El Azem is a 28-year old Moroccan-Syrian UNV volunteer working as a Protection Officer among internally displaced people in Eastern Chad.  Before going to Chad she worked with refugees and internally displaced in Syria and Lebanon.