Oure-Kassouni

Tent in a UNHCR camp for refugees from Darfur. North of Bahai, Eastern Chad.Since 2003, nearly 200,000 refugees have fled Darfur and found shelter on the Chadian border, a harsh and dangerous area itself. As of today (early 2006), rumours of a rebellion in eastern Chad threaten to plunge the country into its second civil war in a generation, catching these people in the middle.This photo was taken at the Oure-Kassouni Refugee Camp, in July 2004, at the height of the NGO scale-up to respond to the tens of thousands of new arrivals flooding across the border. Truly this was the most remote and inhospitable place I have ever visited. During the dry season, temperatures pass 40 degrees C (105 F), during the winter bitter cold winds bring nighttime temperatures below freezing, and for six months of the year, fierce winds rip tents from their moorings and fill eyes and nostrils with sand.Today, nearly 200,000 people remain in camps like Oure-Kassouni on the Chad-Sudan border, their homeland in Darfur still to dangerous to return to, but nowhere else to go.