At a Camp In Chad, Hope Wanes

Ashta Adam offers son Izzedine, 18 months, a taste of food. "I don't know whether he'll live or die," she says. "We have nothing to eat, nothing for him to eat." (Travis Fox -- washingtonpost.com)

In November, the Chadian rebels took Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad and a hub for the humanitarian effort. In the resulting chaos, looters stole 440 tons of food and $1.3 million worth of relief supplies from a U.N. warehouse. The attack prompted aid groups to evacuate many of their staff members from eastern Chad.

Banditry is also on the rise in Chad, and food aid convoys have been attacked as they make the long journey across the Sahara from Libya. In Bahai, another town near the border, aid groups have traveled only in convoys with armed guard since November, when a driver for the International Rescue Committee was shot and critically wounded.

"Where there have been real atrocities committed by rebel groups, it is almost impossible to organize correctly food distribution," said Felix Bamezon, the U.N. World Food Program country director for Chad. "It has the potential of getting out of hand at any time."

About 300 people in Chad were killed late last year, according to Human Rights Watch. In Darfur, as many 450,000 people have died from disease and violence and 2.5 million have been displaced since the fighting began in 2003. The United Nations reported that in the second half of 2006, 12 humanitarian workers were killed and 30 aid compounds were attacked.

A U.N. statement released in January said, "If this situation continues, the humanitarian operation and welfare of the population it aims to support will be irreversibly jeopardized."

The village of Dogdore is a good example of what could happen on a much larger scale if insecurity increases.

The 18,000 people here have collected nearly every bush and tree branch to build shelters, leaving an eerily barren landscape and nothing for Adam to use to make a roof.

"Deep inside, I'm very sad about this situation we're living in. This is not the kind of life we're used to living," she said.

But food remains the most pressing need. Every week, Doctors Without Borders offers a clinic for malnourished children who live in the sprawling makeshift camp that has sprung up next to the village. Adam walks 15 minutes from her hut to the clinic, which is housed inside mud-brick walls.

Under a shelter of straw mats held up by tree branches, dozens of mothers wearing bright flowing dresses cradle their skinny babies and one by one place them on a hanging scale. Izzedine weighed 12 pounds, about half of what is normal for a healthy baby his age.

"He has what we call severe malnutrition," Maari, the Doctors Without Borders physician, said about Izzedine. She gave him two weeks' worth of Plumpy Nut, a nutritious high-calorie food that aid groups give to malnourished children.

Maari cautioned that the emergency food is often just a temporary fix. "Then, they go home and have no food . . . [and] might get back in the vicious circle of malnutrition."

With enough food for only a few more days, Izzedine's father, Mahamat, is trying to earn money by writing out verses of the Koran and selling them, but no one in the camp has money. Whatever money he earns, he must divide between his two wives and families.

Ashta Adam said she might sell the straw mat that serves as the family's bed or perhaps the donated mosquito net that protects them from malaria.

"I don't even have a penny, just this food," she said, pointing to her bowl of millet flour. "When it's gone, we'll go to bed hungry."