Against a Tide of Evil by Mukesh Kapila

Author:Mukesh Kapila [Mukesh Kapila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Published: 2013-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

There are three kinds of evidence: perception, recognition of signs and testimony.

The Sage Kapila

OMER DROVE ME TOWARDS THE OUTSKIRTS OF KHARTOUM, together with Naqib, one of Roger’s security staff. The IDP camp turned out to be nothing more substantial than a sea of raggedy tents set upon a dusty field. We pulled to a halt in the midst of a parched semi-desert setting. In the near distance, the city rose above the camp, forming a glittering backdrop to the poverty and hopelessness.

I got down from the vehicle, and for the first time ever I was able to mingle freely with the victims of whatever was unfolding in Darfur. There wasn’t a single minder in sight, and it was truly liberating. A massive crowd gathered, drawn to us by our foreign appearance and the UN flag fluttering from the vehicle.

I didn’t have a translator, so the first thing I did was ask for anyone who spoke English. A young man dressed in a stained and raggedy jalabiya stepped forwards. One of his eyes was half-turned in on itself, as if from a recent injury. He introduced himself as being Idris, one of the ‘leaders’ of the camp. He struck me as being immensely young to be a community leader. Normally, they were the elders. But one glance around me showed that just about everyone here was young. Young men, young women and a scattering of children: there were no elders present.

I explained to Idris that we were from the UN, and I asked him the first question that came into my mind: where are all the old people?

‘Many were killed – those too old and too slow to run away,’ Idris explained. ‘Those who did survive, we had to leave behind. We are the fit ones who managed to walk and get lifts on trucks. It’s taken us three months to get here.’

‘Please, start at the beginning,’ I asked. ‘Tell me how you were attacked and by whom, and what happened afterwards.’

‘The first thing when they attack the village is they set it on fire,’ a woman volunteered, ‘by dropping bombs from the air. When they hit the earth, they burst and throw out fire everywhere.’ The woman was dressed in a bright orange robe with a rainbow-coloured scarf draped around her head and shoulders, but what struck me most was the burning anger in her dark eyes. ‘When you run from your hut because of the fire, they shoot you with their guns, otherwise you get burned alive inside your hut.’

‘That’s what they always do,’ a second woman remarked. ‘They set the fire and when you come out they shoot you down.’

‘Sometimes they come in the night, and you just have to run,’ said a third woman. ‘But if you have so many children you cannot run with them all, and that’s what has caused us to lose our children …’

‘The old people cannot run, so they just kill them,’ the woman in the rainbow headscarf added. ‘They cannot run fast enough, so they are shot.

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