Nomads Describe Persecution in Chad

Thousands of Arab Herders Flee to Sudan's Darfur Region Despite Fear of Backlash

Adam Halou, right, and other cow-herding Arab nomads in eastern Chad say they have been attacked and tortured in a campaign by their government and its allied militias in the past year. Arab nomads have been widely vilified as the feared Janjaweed in Darfur. (By Stephanie Mccrummen -- The Washington Post)

NEAR ABECHE, Chad -- The Chadian government and its allied militias are indiscriminately targeting Arab nomads in eastern Chad, according to interviews with dozens of nomads, who described raids on their temporary villages, at least two aerial bombings, harassment and incidents of torture over the past year.

As a result of the insecurity, an estimated 30,000 Chadian Arabs have migrated into the Darfur region of neighboring Sudan, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

And with Chadian and Sudanese nomads broadly vilified as the so-called Janjaweed Arab militias responsible for a brutal campaign in Darfur, nomad leaders say they fear a backlash.

"The government is punishing us," said Yusuf Babad, who was among a group of nomads herding cattle north across a sweep of rocky desert here recently, their donkeys heaped with blankets, tarps, pots and other supplies. "They tell us to bring our weapons, and if you don't have weapons, they punish you. Some of us, they have been punished until they died. They put plastic over your head so you cannot breathe. They put hot glass under your knees and say, 'Talk!' They put pepper in your nose until you talk."

"The government wants to say that all Arabs are Janjaweed," he said. "As we are Arabs, the land has become narrow to us. Nobody likes us. Only God."

The nomads' allegations represent only one thread in a tangle of conflicts across eastern Chad in which some Chadian Arabs have themselves participated.

Chadian officials say they have targeted only the guilty. They call the nomad migration part of a "satanic" plot by the Arab-led Sudanese government to replenish its Janjaweed militias in Darfur and settle Arab newcomers on farmland belonging to the 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict there.

"Officially, we do not have people persecuted in Chad so that they'd need to leave and find refuge," said Abdoulaya Nour, a coordinator with Chad's humanitarian relief agency. "Whether nomads are persecuted is not something we want to dwell on."

It is the rainy season here, which means water rushes through broad channels of sand, and glossy green grass hovers over the desert like a mirage. Chadian soldiers, rebels, militias and thieves are relatively immobilized by the temporary rivers, and the prevailing mood is apprehension about what might happen when the rain stops.

An estimated 170,000 Chadians have been uprooted by fighting since June 2006, a number that surpasses 200,000 if the recently displaced nomads are included. In addition, more than 230,000 refugees from Darfur have crossed into the country.

Among a series of related conflicts is a struggle between the Chadian government of President Idriss Deby and four Chadian rebel groups, with both sides vying for alliances with various ethnic communities. There is a broader rivalry between the governments of Chad and Sudan, with each accusing the other of supporting rebels.

There are intercommunal conflicts exacerbated by a glut of weapons, and routine banditry by men in various shades of camouflage.