A Darfur Village Bears Up Under Janjaweed Yoke

"There is no security," said Ismail, who is 37 and has 10 children.

The village is surrounded, and the atmosphere is tense; the militiamen seemed easily provoked by the presence of journalists.

Since the Janjaweed came in early 2003, some families have fled Kuteri for what seemed like the relative safety of the camps, but others could not or did not want to leave. Ahmed's elderly father refused to abandon the village where farmers from the Fur tribe, from which Darfur takes its name, have cultivated the land for 70 years. Ismail's father was too frail to make the trip, perhaps two days long, through the sand and the sun. Women stayed because their husbands did. And there were other considerations.

"In Islam, it says that you defend your dignity," Ismail said. "Here we have land. Here we have family. Here we have a house. We have these things to keep us."

When they arrived, the Arab militiamen -- from nomadic tribes that had grazed their cows in the area but, with government guns, had become the enemy -- arrested Ahmed, beat him and handcuffed his wrists so tightly they are encircled with scars.

"They asked questions like: 'Do you know any rebels in this village? Do you know these people? Tell me exactly who helped them,' " he said.

The militiamen would leave at night and come back during the day. In all, they have killed 10 men from the village and raped 15 women, according to Ahmed, the sheik. They pillaged homes, let their camels eat the crops of beans, corn and tomatoes, and at other times, just sat with their weapons.

Over time, the sheik said, the villagers attempted to appease their captors, first with protection money, then with food, and even with their own beds, until a kind of uneasy rapport developed, governed by certain rules. Half the crops were for the villagers; half were for the militiamen. Meals had to be shared, lest the militiamen suspect they were being poisoned. Conversation had to be personal, yet not too direct.

"You just talk in a nice way, like a child's way," Ismail said. "If you say anything wrong, they will kill you immediately."

"It's hard for grown men like us to act like children," said Ahmed, who has three wives and 21 children. "But we have old men and children in this village, and we need to protect them."

It was early afternoon, and as Ahmed and Ismail walked out of the hut, their demeanor changed from grave to cheerful in the presence of the militiamen sitting in the sand.

According to a failing peace agreement reached last year between the government and one Darfur rebel group, the militiamen were supposed to be disarmed. But Ahmed said the men now wearing government uniforms and driving trucks are the same ones who at first came in civilian clothes, riding camels and horses. The villagers know them by name.

The sheik walked along the sand paths of the village he once governed, tapping a thin stick along the walls in a listless, regal gesture. He pointed toward the valley, where a woman fetching water was raped last month, he said. He pointed toward a distant mountain where one of the ever-fragmenting Darfur rebel groups is based.

"I never see them," Ahmed said, "because the government controls this place, and they cannot let them enter."

Even as humanitarian organizations remain focused on helping the millions of displaced people, there is growing concern that some of the vast camps encircling towns in Darfur are becoming semi-permanent settlements of people dependent on aid and increasingly alienated from village life.

In many camps, people have begun to build mud-brick homes, fences, gardens and other structures in a sign that they are settling in for a long stay. There have also been reports of youth gangs forming in the camps and other quasi-urban problems developing, aid workers said.

In that context, a few relief groups are attempting to help people who have expressed a desire to stay in their villages.

In the area around Kuteri, the International Committee of the Red Cross has distributed food and seeds, and last week it repaired a broken well in the village. Though last year's harvest was decent, Ahmed said he remains concerned that villagers will run out of food.

He has heard about a U.N. proposal to send in a peacekeeping force, a plan he supports in theory but fears in reality: He is afraid, he said, that if the troops come, the militiamen will start killing everyone in his village.

So far, about 50 families from Kuteri, including those of Ahmed's four brothers, have packed their bags, loaded their donkeys and headed for a camp near Zalingei. And one day last week, another few families -- totaling about 30 people -- decided they had finally had enough of making nice with militiamen and wondering whether they would have enough food tomorrow.

In a scene repeated perhaps millions of times across Darfur, the families went house to house in the early morning, saying goodbye to their friends and relatives, who gave them cooking oil, soap and food to help them get through the first few days in the camp.

"All the families leaving are feeling sad," Ismail said. "We tell them to go stay in the camp, and if you don't like it, then you can come back."

But not one family has returned, except for occasional visits, he said, and the village's population is dwindling. Even the sheik sometimes entertains the notion of leaving.

"At the camps, they give you food, clothes, water," he said. "Here, we have nothing. . . . But I like my house. I can't change my house for another place. I like my home, my land, my people. I can't change."