The Milky Way that night glowed bright from its ancient starlight, as if painted by the hand of God to both amuse and befuddle mankind. Ethan had chosen to sleep outside the tent, taking full advantage of the cool evening air. He had seen similarly beautiful night skies when camping as a boy in the Cascade Mountains back home. He always found the sight mesmerizing. He could spend hours lying on his back watching for meteors and satellites to streak across the sky. The practice brought him peace, and his mind often wandered, as it did earlier on this night. He needed to be alone with his thoughts.
Ethan found himself thinking about the refugees surrounding him. During the evening meal he had sat across from a widowed mother named Bebe. There were so many in the camp that he knew he would never meet everyone, but he had introduced himself to her and struck up a conversation. Ethan was mildly surprised to discover that she spoke English with a strong British accent.
Bebe explained that she was fortunate to have been born in a village that had a school, and she attended for several years until she was old enough to work all day to help support her family. It was at school that she met Allison, a young volunteer from Dover in the U.K. She taught Bebe how to read and speak English and shared her modest collection of fiction novels with Bebe. A fast learner, Bebe enjoyed the compilations of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
“I would say you are fond of science fiction,” observed Allison one afternoon when Bebe reported she had finished reading The Mysterious Island.
“What is science fiction?” inquired Bebe.
Allison smiled. “It is a type of story. You see, there are stories that are set in the present time and based on what we know to be true, or science fact. But science fiction stories are not based on science fact. The writer can make up things, like the creatures found on the Mysterious Island.”
Bebe laughed. “Yes, I like science fiction.”
Allison also entertained Bebe for hours at a time with stories of Dover, the English country, and London. Bebe found it hard to imagine what a big city was like—all the lights and people with restaurants and stores open until late in the evening. But what Bebe enjoyed most were Allison’s stories about the theater.
“Actors dress in costume and play a role—they pretend to be a character from the story on a stage in front of a large audience. They usually have very ornate decorations on the stage to help you imagine you are part of the story. A long time ago an English poet named Shakespeare wrote many plays that are still very popular,” explained Allison.
During dinner and then after, Bebe and Ethan talked for hours about her family. Ethan learned that in Bebe’s tribe a family unit included all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. A family could easily total more than 30 people.
When Ethan asked what had caused her to come to the refugee camp, Bebe explained that her village was raided by the Janjaweed about a month ago. The raiders rode in on charging horses, shooting their rifles. The villagers were defenseless and terrified. It was very chaotic during the attack, and she was quickly separated from her husband and brothers.
Her four sons—all under the age of thirteen—were killed, and she was raped by three men, then left to die. She could not protect her daughters from being beaten and raped by other Janjaweed men. Her youngest daughter didn’t survive the brutal attack—she was only ten years old.
Bebe had told her story so straight forward and honestly, sparing no details, as the tears slowly inched down Ethan’s cheeks. But Bebe did not cry—she said she had cried for days after the attack and could cry no more.
Later, after the raiders left, her husband and brothers were nowhere to be found. Bebe left her razed village with her two surviving daughters. They wandered on foot for three days, walking west toward the border with Chad. Finally they stumbled upon a Peace Corps team conducting a survey for new water wells.
When Bebe and her daughters reached the camp they were exhausted and dehydrated. Slowly, word of the refugee camp spread, resulting in first a trickle and then a flood of survivors, mostly older women and young children—almost all girls, since nearly all the boys had been killed. But none of the adolescent and adult men from her village had made it to the camp, leading the refugees to believe that they were all either killed or captured.
“I’m very sorry, Bebe.” Ethan didn’t know what else to say.
“Such is the way of the Janjaweed and their allies,” she said. To Ethan, she sounded rather philosophical about the brutality, and this made it even harder for him to understand. How could Bebe so readily accept the violence that had been wrought upon her family and village? Throughout her retelling of the devastation she had suffered, not once did Bebe complain. She simply reported the facts without displaying emotion and outrage. Ethan couldn’t understand her detachment.
“You said the Janjaweed have allies?” Ethan asked.
“Oh yes. The Janjaweed have powerful allies. The army of Sudan helps them. The government says no, but we saw the airplanes bomb our village. The Janjaweed have no airplanes.”
“Why do they kill your husbands and children and drive you from your homes?” Ethan asked.
“We do not know. They just do.” Bebe spoke as if her reply was at once both obvious and without need of explanation, as if she had been asked why the lion attacks the antelope.
Bebe could see the shock and sorrow in Ethan’s eyes. She was used to disbelief from foreigners who had not witnessed the atrocities. Yet, Ethan also communicated a sincerity and innocence that she had not seen in the visiting journalists. As if to test his willingness to learn, she continued. “Some say that it is not only the Arab Janjaweed that attack my people. Some say that a half-man creature also preys on us.”
This statement surprised Ethan. He had read much about the conflict, and at no time had he read of such superstitious claims. He carefully studied Bebe’s face. Until now, she had seemed very rational. But this… this suggested either Bebe was unbalanced or the shock of it all had caused her to retreat somewhat into native superstitions.
Perhaps that is how she is able to deal with this horror; to somehow rationalize it as actions of evil spirits.
“A half-man creature. What do you mean?” Ethan asked.
“I have not witnessed it myself. But they say the creature walks on two legs as a man but has yellow eyes and is strong like a wild animal. It is said to speak a language that is not human—it grunts, barks, and howls. Like a dog, but not the same.”
“It would seem to me that the behavior of the Janjaweed is more like wild animals than civilized men. Are you sure that this creature isn’t just a wild militiaman?”
“I am only saying what others have spoken to me.”
“Do these half-man creatures appear often?”
Bebe shrugged. “No, not so often. And always at night. Do you think it is a superstition, a made-up story?”
Ethan didn’t want to confess his true opinion to Bebe. “I believe what you are telling me, that villagers think they have seen a strange man-like creature. What you and the other refugees have survived is horrible. But what happened was done by men… nothing more and nothing less.”
As Ethan recalled Bebe’s words he considered the circumstances of her life. Although she was not very old—Ethan estimated her age to be about 30—she had already given birth to seven children. From Ethan’s perspective, Bebe’s world was filled with impossible struggles and hardships; it was so foreign to him that he doubted he could ever truly understand it. He wondered what Bebe would be like if she had been born in another place where survival was not so hard.
Life is so fragile, he thought. He had experienced personal tragedy when his mother died, but even that paled in comparison with what people like Bebe were enduring daily. Then, as now, he thought about how quickly everything that a person takes for granted could change due to a freak stroke of bad luck.
Eventually, Ethan fell asleep. It was a fitful rest at best, and when the sun began to rise in the morning he awoke easily. Although still tired from the exhausting trip to Darfur, he was stimulated as the morning sun struck his face. This was a new day, a new beginning, and the symbolism wasn’t lost on him.
There were few signs of activity yet—most people in the camp were still asleep. The pungent odor of smoldering wood and animal dung, probably a cooking fire, hung in the still air, and he heard the faint sound of a small child crying in the distance.
Still wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday, he walked to the mess tent hoping that at least one of the staff was also up. He parted the mosquito netting, happy to smell the aroma of strong coffee.
As Ethan sat down to savor his mug of coffee he noticed a few people beginning to move around outside the tents now. Soon that would change, he surmised, as the sun gained elevation and began to turn the tents into oversized solar ovens.
Two more staff members, both women from the Masalit tribe, entered the mess tent and continued with preparations for breakfast. Sitting in silence, sipping the black coffee, Ethan noticed a cloud of dust growing in size to the north of the camp. At first he thought it was a dust devil or some other type of atmospheric disturbance. It continued to grow as it approached the camp. After a few minutes he could see that the dust was emanating from a cluster of vehicles driving fast across the dirt and sand.
The two Masalit women preparing the morning breakfast looked up and began to speak in excited voices. Ethan couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it attracted his attention and he looked in the other direction where the women were pointing to see another dust cloud. This one was rising above a hundred or more horses. Then he heard a word he did understand… “Janjaweed!”
Within seconds, panic erupted across the entire camp. People poured out of their tents—women carrying babies, young children running and crying, older women simply sitting and weeping, physically unable to enter the mass exodus.
Ethan stood transfixed by the rapidly unfolding drama in front of him, having no idea what to do. The two dust clouds approached relentlessly from opposite sides of the camp. Within the camp itself, the scene was complete and total chaos. Refugees ran away from the Janjaweed only to see another force approaching from the opposite direction.
Out of nowhere, Sam appeared and shouted to Ethan. “You must leave! If they find you they will take you prisoner, or kill you!”
Ethan stood looking at Sam, dumbfounded. Had he heard her correctly? What the hell is going on? Only 24 hours ago he arrived at this refugee camp with assurances that everyone was safe.
“Didn’t you hear me? Go! Run! You have to hide until they’re gone!”
Ethan remained rooted, staring at Sam.
Seeing that she wasn’t getting through, she shoved Ethan. “Go! Get out of here—now!”
Slowly at first, Ethan turned as his eyes searched for any sanctuary. He spotted a small grove of trees about 200 yards away and he ran for them, hoping to get there before he was seen by the approaching militia. He ran hard, thinking of nothing more than reaching the trees, never looking back over his shoulder. He could only hope that his friends were doing the same.
The thunderous roar of approaching horses and vehicles was almost deafening, but the screams of women and children pierced through the din, amplifying Ethan’s fear. He stumbled into the trees and tripped over a log, crashing to the ground. He pulled himself up behind the fallen tree trunk. As he rose to peer over the log he was almost kicked in the head by his friend Joe who had been right behind him.
Joe cleared the log easily and slid to a stop, crawling back to where Ethan lay. From this position they were sheltered from view but could still see the mess tent and a large portion of the camp.
“Did the others get away?” asked Ethan.
“I think so. I’d just gotten to the mess tent when I heard Sam yelling for you to run. So I did, too. I think Brad and the rest of our group ran out that direction,” Joe pointed to their right where the small grove of trees continued.
By this time Ethan and Joe could see the mounted militiamen circling the camp, firing their rifles into the refugees while running down and trampling the elderly and young. The noise was horrendous—gunfire, screaming, shouting voices, children crying. The unarmed and helpless refugees were falling quickly before the onslaught. And still the mounted Janjaweed circled the camp firing their rifles at point-blank range into the panicked crowd. Ethan was sickened by the sight, but couldn’t force himself to turn away. He couldn’t believe that this was real.
Then Joe spotted Brad and Wendy as they ran into the grove of trees. A couple dozen yards behind them were three more people, but Joe couldn’t be sure who they were in the dust and confusion. They were also running for the trees, aiming to enter where Brad and Wendy had just entered moments before.
A Janjaweed soldier also saw them and aimed his rifle. Firing without hesitation, the solider brought the three to the ground. Joe yelled, “No!” and started to rise. Ethan grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.
“If they see you, they’ll shoot you, too!”
Joe realized the truth in Ethan’s statement. Neither Joe nor Ethan could escape the horror and brutality of what they were witnessing. The refugees were being slaughtered and the Janjaweed showed no sign of letting up.
“Come on, we need to move back and find better cover,” Ethan told Joe. “Stay low and follow me.”
The two crawled deeper into the grove, being more concerned with staying low and moving quickly than they were with making excessive noise. It would be impossible for anyone to hear them above the roar of the massacre.
Ethan spotted a leafy thorn bush of some sort to their left. Next to the bush was a large boulder, and it looked like small animals had worked out a bedding area next to the boulder and under the sheltered protection of the dense foliage. He changed his direction and crawled faster for the bush.
Ethan told Joe to squeeze in first, and then he followed, scratching his face and arms on the inch-long, hardened thorns. It was tight, but they were fairly well camouflaged. It would have to do, but if they had been seen it would not be long before the militiamen would find their hiding place. Ethan and Joe could only hope and pray that they were safe.
Looking through the thorn bush Ethan saw a narrow sliver of the butchering occurring just outside the shelter of the grove. It was well over 200 yards away, but he still saw the terror in the faces of the women and children as the Janjaweed prevented their escape from the refugee-turned-death camp. Joe was pushed against the boulder behind Ethan, and he couldn’t see anything of the carnage.
And then Ethan glimpsed something unbelievable. Trotting into the mess tent was some creature that looked to be half man and half animal. As if it sensed Ethan spying it, the creature froze and turned its head, looking directly at Ethan with intense yellow eyes. The creature was holding a rifle, just like the ones the Janjaweed had.
Ethan blinked his eyes and wiped the sweat from his face. Looking again, it was gone. It happened so fast Ethan wasn’t sure if what he had seen was real or just his imagination playing tricks.
“What are we going to do?” whispered Joe, causing Ethan to pull back his focus to their more immediate concerns.
“I don’t know. What can we do? If we go out there we’ll be killed. We don’t have any guns. Hiding here may seem chicken-shit but without weapons we’ll just be slaughtering ourselves.”
Ethan’s mind was racing.
“Wait… maybe we can do something.”
“Like what,” Joe scoffed weakly. “Call in the marines?”
“Not quite, but close,” and Ethan retrieved his cell phone from his pants pocket. He dialed a long string of numbers. “Please be in range,” he said silently to himself.
The number connected and he heard a ring tone. Finally, the other party picked up. “Hello…”
“Dad, it’s me! You have to…”
“You’ve reached Peter Savage. I can’t take your call, so please leave a short message and I’ll get back to you. Cheers.” Then there was the requisite beep signaling to leave a message.
“Look, Dad, I can’t talk long. The refugee camp is under attack by Janjaweed raiders. They’re shooting everyone! You have to get help!”
As Ethan spoke softly into his phone he saw a pair of dusty sandaled feet appear not more than ten feet in front of the bush. He reached back and firmly squeezed Joe’s arm sending a nonverbal message to be silent and still. Ethan held his breath, daring not to even breathe for fear of being heard.
Only seconds passed, but it seemed like an eternity to Ethan. Then the body attached to the sandaled feet bent down and pointed a large rifle into the bush. The face appeared next. It was deeply tanned with the typical features associated with Arabian nomads of North Africa and the Middle East—black hair and short beard, sharp nose, prominent cheek bones. The face grinned, exposing two gold teeth. His head and body were wrapped in dirty white linens. He motioned to come out, saying the same thing in Arabic.
“Okay, okay!” said Ethan. His phone was still open and he hoped the connection to his father’s voicemail had not terminated. “Don’t shoot! We’re coming out!”
Ethan and Joe slowly and painfully crawled out from their hiding spot, earning more scratches from the sharp thorns. They were terrified and expected to be killed right there. The man kept saying something that they couldn’t understand. From the way he was dressed, the two concluded he was a Janjaweed militiaman.
The militiaman motioned with his rifle. Then two other Janjaweed soldiers arrived. They, too, held their rifles pointed at Ethan and Joe, just in case one rifle was simply an insufficient threat against the two unarmed volunteers. One of the men stepped forward and spoke in broken English.
“You are aid workers, yes?”
Ethan nodded. “We’re volunteers with the Peace Corps Reserve.”
“What is that in your hand?” he asked, looking at Ethan.
“My phone.”
“Give it to me!”
Ethan extended the phone and the man grabbed it. Looking at the phone, he could see that a call had been made and maybe the line was still open. He dropped the phone onto the sandy ground and stomped it with his foot, breaking the phone into pieces.
“Hey!” shouted Ethan and he lunged forward. But Joe wisely caught his arm and pulled him back.
“Who were you calling?” he demanded.
Ethan just stared at him, refusing to answer
“Who were you calling?” he shouted, inching toward Ethan.
Joe answered to deflect the obviously growing irritation of the Janjaweed soldier. “He was on the phone with the U.S. Marines, that’s who. And when they get here, they’re going to kick your ass! You can count on it.”
Ethan wished Joe hadn’t said that. Antagonizing the Janjaweed was only likely to get them killed sooner.
The man studied Joe and then said, “No one will ever know what has happened here. Even if they do, do you really think they would care? America doesn’t want to become involved in African affairs.”
Joe’s arrogant attitude did not reflect his true feelings. He and Ethan both knew that help would be slow to arrive, if it ever did. Clearly, the Janjaweed militias had been allowed virtual free reign for so long that they were confident there would not be any military intervention from the rest of the world.
One of the militiamen stepped forward and jabbed the barrel of his gun into Joe’s belly. “Raise your hands and move.”
Joe and Ethan did as they were told. The Janjaweed led them out of the grove of trees, but not back to the camp.
“Where are you taking us?” asked Ethan.
The only reply was a sharp poke in his back with a rifle barrel.
The small party exited the trees on the far side from the refugee camp. There were another dozen Janjaweed soldiers as well as Brad, Wendy, and Sam. They were all assembled at the rear of a military truck with a canvas tarp over the back, but it was clear that most of the militiamen were traveling by horse.
“Get in,” the man motioned to the truck.
Without any other choice, the five aid workers climbed into the back of the truck sliding onto bench seats on either side of the truck bed. Underneath the dark-green canvas tarp the heat was stifling. Two guards climbed in after them; one sitting on each side at the rear of the truck. The two men had their rifles lazily aimed at the students, not that any of them entertained ideas of trying to overcome the guards and escape.
“Where are you taking us?” asked Sam. The only reply was the falling canvas flap covering the opening. It was dark inside and even hotter now that the only source of air had been closed off.
Sam looked at Joe and Ethan. “Did any of the others get away?” she asked.
Joe shook his head. Ethan looked at Sam and then at the floor of the truck. “We saw three people running for the trees right behind Brad and Wendy,” Ethan paused. He seemed to have trouble finding the words. His faced wrinkled as if it was painful to speak. Then he swallowed and regained his composure.
“They didn’t make it to the grove. A Janjaweed raider shot them in the back.”
Sam stared at the floor of the truck bed as tears slowly ran down her cheeks. Wendy and Brad remained silent as they reflected on what had happened to their friends.
“What’s going to happen to us?” Wendy finally asked, breaking the silence among the volunteers.
“I don’t know,” Sam replied tearfully. “I don’t know.”