In Darfur, Terror From the Air

Aid groups, African Union officials, analysts and rebels say that as the conflict is intensifying, the number of displaced people is growing. Many here say the worst of the conflict is still to come, as the government seeks to drive the rebels into submission by terrorizing their civilian supporters. War and disease in Darfur have killed as many as 450,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes.

The recent expansion of air attacks has familiarized Darfur civilians with the sights and sounds of military aircraft.

There is the white Antonov bomber that lumbers past, high in the sky, audible but not deafening. A long, high whistle is followed by tremendous boom. The hole left in the reddish Darfur sand is round and about three feet across. Generally, several bombs are dropped in a pass, and then the Antonov comes by again and, sometimes, again.

The aiming is crude, and rarely do the bombs land anywhere near the middle of a village. Also, they rarely seem to kill. What the bombs do, say those who have been near where they hit, is terrify with the force of their blasts and their seeming randomness.

Abubakar Ibrahim Hassan, a long-faced man in a white robe and knit cap who appeared to be in his sixties, said the Antonovs flew over Bellala Gorf several times that day in July. Residents fled their huts for trees at the edge of the village.

"We knew the fire would come and kill everybody," he said.

But far more frightening are the Mi-24s. The helicopters can be outfitted with machine guns, bombs and rockets designed to blast through heavy armor. Villagers in Bellala Gorf described the Mi-24s firing munitions that left a distinctive trench-like pattern, about 10 feet long and three feet across, the signature of rockets fired from close to the ground.

Residents also described two Mi-24s painted in green camouflage. Several villagers said the helicopters hovered so low that it seemed they could have reached up and touched the aircraft.

Instead, they fled, tried to hide in the sand or cringed in their huts.

Ali Hadi Osman, 41, lay as still as he could, spread-eagle in the dust, he said, hoping the helicopter pilots would not see him. He stayed like that until long after they had flown away.

"If there's any movement," Osman reasoned, "they will come back."

Residents said they knew of no deaths from the air raid on Ballala Gorf, though 17 huts were destroyed in a burst of sand and black smoke. The attack was one in a series of incidents around the town of Korma over several days in early July. Amnesty International counted 72 deaths. Mass graves also have been reported in the villages around Korma.

Korma and surrounding villages now are reportedly nearly empty of their populations.

After Mustafa's terrifying encounter with the helicopter gunships, which came within 100 feet of his family's hideout beneath the trees, he decided to leave with his wife and six children.

"We are looking for peace," Mustafa said. "We want our children to go to school, to get a health clinic, good water and a good place to live."

It will happen, Mustafa said, only if the United Nations comes. The African Union force, even if it stays, is not able to protect civilians, he said.

Mustafa and his family left in the night, with their battered pots and pans and bags of flour loaded on the family's three donkeys. Together, the 11 of them -- eight people and three pack animals -- walked four days to a camp near El Fasher. They have lived there ever since and are unsure when, if ever, they will return home.