NORAHs CAMP

SEVENTEEN DAYS TO ADREY

When Norah Osman reached ADREY Refugee Camp in Chad with her children, she had nothing left to give.

For seventeen days, she had walked from Kab Kabiya across the war-torn landscape of Darfur, travelling with thousands of other displaced people in search of food, water, shelter, and the one thing that had become more precious than anything else: a chance to stay alive.

She had watched the strong stumble, the sick fall behind, and children cry themselves to sleep with empty stomachs. The old men could barely keep pace. Women carried infants against their chests while struggling beneath whatever possessions they had managed to save. Behind them lay burning settlements, abandoned homes, and roads where armed men decided who could pass and who would never reach safety.

Ahead lay Chad.

ADREY Refugee Camp was supposed to be a place of refuge. But when Norah arrived, she discovered that survival was only the beginning of another struggle.

The camp held just under ten thousand people—women, children, elderly men, and exhausted families who had walked out of Darfur with little more than the clothes on their backs. They lived in makeshift shelters scattered across the dusty ground. Food was insufficient. Medical supplies were running low. Clean water was difficult to obtain, and every new column of internally displaced people brought another emergency.

The camp was growing faster than anyone could manage.

Norah and her children found a small patch of ground where they could erect a shelter from pieces of cardboard and whatever scraps of material they could obtain. It was hardly a home, but it offered a little protection from the sun and the cold night air.

For the first time in seventeen days, Norah allowed herself to believe that her children might survive.

Then she met Melissa Thornbridge.