HE would love to kill the lot of them: men, women, children. An eye for an eye. The main thing is to get even, take bloody revenge on the Arabs and their mounted militias, he says, wiping his moustache with a thumb and index finger. Because they took everybody he loved and anything that was dear to him. His mother, father and brother slaughtered, his sister raped and his village burnt to the ground. His future is gone, the past has become an all-encompassing emotional block.
He has already taken out quite a few, he claims. But not enough. "I will never forget, never forgive," says the man whose body is covered with hijabs, sachets of dark leather holding verses from the Koran. "Those shield me from enemy bullets, make me
invincible."
Mohammed Idris talks like a man who has accepted his fate; with a strong voice, eyes staring into the distance of the desert. He is massaging his fingers until the bony joints shine whitish under his dark skin. Every time he returns to this godforsaken spot, the colour drains from his face, the shine disappears from his eyes.
He sits on a hilltop surrounded by the rubble and ashes of burnt-out ruins. Wind gusts through ripped curtains. At his feet, the mummified remains of 11 people are scattered around. Fallen corpses, their clothing in rags. The faint, sweet smell of death and decay fills our nostrils. His hands caress the sandy desert soil. He is lost in feelings we can't share, as if he has travelled to some faraway spot where normal people can't go. Down in the valley lies Farawija, his village.
"They shot everyone that could not run away fast enough," he says, as he wipes his moustache one more time.
He pulls himself together, as if waking from a dream. He is a young man. White turban, mirror sunglasses, plastic sandals. Just 19, but possessed by a single burning thought: to kill. "I am good at it," he says, and shows immaculate white teeth in a broad grin.
Idris belongs to the tribe of the Zhagava, nomads, cattle-breeders and small farmers. Black Africans. The region of Darfur is divided by an imaginary borderline where 'Arabian Africa' meets 'Black Africa'. Different cultures, traditions and rituals clash here. For centuries, Arabs kept blacks as slaves, a fate that befell Idris's grandfathers and grandmothers.
Consequently, the troubles in Darfur boil down to ethnic warfare. But the real motivation is no longer freedom or equal rights but acquiring power and a homeland. For both sides. Conflicting emotions that have been bubbling in the collective memories of tribes for centuries have now erupted in a lawless vacuum where human rights are stampeded and where Muslims kill Muslims.
He does not care what will become of him, says Idris. "Even if they kill me, what do I have to lose?" He does not feel he has anything worth living for; he feels only the void of what he has lost.
Idris is enlisted as a fighter in the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) in Darfur, as are most of the men from his homeland in the north-west of Sudan, the largest country in Africa. Some have joined the fighting to gain freedom and to overcome oppression from the Arab-biased government. Others cannot accept the humiliation of having been driven from their homes, languishing in refugee camps in neighbouring Chad. But most - like Idris - just focus on revenge.
It's an unequal fight. The rebels have little more than outdated machine-guns, rusty grenades and camels to defend themselves from the rocket-launchers, helicopters and jet-propelled bombers of the Sudanese army and its ally, the Janjaweed, the lawless, much-feared Arab militia. The conflict has already cost more than 300,000 lives. A further two million people have fled their homes. The truce brokered by international diplomacy is often neglected by both sides in sudden outbursts of violence.
"I have buried my family here," says Idris when we reach Farawija. "This is where my friends died. And my soul." He refers to the village as "the scene of the crime". Maybe the truth about what happened here will never be heard. His voice cracks. Could he have saved his family? Did he make a mistake by leaving in search of wood to fuel the stove?
Later that afternoon, the sun sinks slowly behind the mountains in the distance. The glaring great ball of fire paints the desert in pinkish red; then the picture postcard beauty of daylight gives way to the darkness of evening. For Idris, it is the most beautiful moment of the day. "In this light my country is washed clean," he says. He shivers slightly, then starts his story.
The killers came in the morning. Idris was away gathering timber, in the place he always looked for firewood. A happy-go-lucky youngster who planned to study law in the capital and marry a local beauty, he had heard of rumours that members of his tribe had been massacred, but the battlefield seemed a long way away. Why would it come to Farawija, where just a few cattle-breeders and small-time farmers were scratching a living? Surely, there was no loot to be had here, apart from a handful of goats and a few camels? A little later he heard the sound of planes diving to drop their bombs, then the explosions. He saw smoke rising from his village. He dropped his wood and ran in the direction of the gunfire. He ran for an hour without stopping, until he reached the burning village. A pall of smoke hung over Farawija. The corpses of women, children and the elderly were scattered around. Even the cattle had been shot. The huts had been burnt down. Some survivors sat among the rubble, frozen in terror, staring at the devastation around them. "Allah," the prayer went through his head when he sprinted towards the family home, "let them be alive!"
First, he found his sister lying in the dust of the village square, her clothes torn, the lower half of her body covered in blood. She had been raped by six men, she told him, but at least she had survived. A few metres further away lay his mother, shot through the head. In the smouldering remains of the family hut lay two charred bodies: his father and brother.
Idris buried the three bodies in a grave next to the hut. More than 200 people had died in Farawija that day. Those who could packed up their belongings on a camel or donkey and made the three-day trip to the refugee camps across the border in Chad. A neighbour offered to take his sister along and Idris promised that one day he would find her in the camps. By then he had made up his mind to join the rebels.
Anyone can join the rebel movement. Hungry old men or half-grown boys, every one a volunteer - no one gets paid. Orphaned children cook for the commanders or search for firewood until they are strong enough to shoulder a weapon and join the battle.
Idris buried his dreams and his future with his family. A life as a lawyer in Khartoum? "Words will never bring justice to this country. Just this here," he says, pointing to his gun. So, has he forgotten all about starting a family - normally so important in Sudan? "Maybe, after the war is over." At the moment, there are more important things to be done. Kill or be killed.
Farawija is now a base camp for the rebels - liberated country, burnt earth. Tree trunks are scarred with bullet holes. Deep craters show where bombs fell from helicopters. Here, the rebels keep a stash of weapons, petrol and spare parts for their vehicles. Crates of food with labels of the USAID (US aid - assistance for Iraq) or WFP (United Nations World Food Programme) are stacked in one of the huts, 'organised' from refugee camps where relatives of the rebels live and where the fighters go when they are injured or need a break from life at the front.
Midnight has arrived. A bitterly cold storm is whipping dust over the desert floor. Idris squats in front of a fire with a camel-hair blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He has seen death and delivered it. Every once in a while, the rebels carry out surprise attacks. "Close fighting. Then you can show who is brave, who is a man," he says, drawing his knife and swiping the blade through the air while he brushes his thumb over his throat. "You won't find any men among the government soldiers. Just cowards. They only feel strong when backed up by bombs."
I ask him how many people he has killed. He does not know. Somewhere along the way he stopped counting. "A lot," he says at last, with a shrug. Then he tells how government troops ran away from him in battle, leaving their guns behind. It's an epic tale. He laughs and holds his treasured Kalashnikov - the weapon never leaves his hands - up high. "I took this one day from an enemy after I had killed him." He says it without emotion. No hate, no remorse. It is as if killing is nothing more than playing a game of football with friends on a Sunday afternoon.
Suddenly tension fills the camp with the news that Saya - another rebel stronghold, some 120km from Farawija - has been attacked. The danger of an attack on Farawija is too close for comfort and the camp is in a high state of alert. Officers yell commands and the thud of soldiers' boots fills the air.
"You know," says Idris, "you can trek long distances through this enormous land completely unharmed, or you can lose life in the very next step."
One of his comrades, Adam, wipes sweat and dust from his face and takes a sip of brown, stinking water from an aluminium cup. "It's about time we got back to war," he says as a jet flies low over the village. The rebels throw themselves on the ground or hide under trees, frozen in an attempt to avoid being spotted by enemy aircraft.
It's early the next morning. Soldiers are grouped together on the village square, where they have found a huge unexploded bomb, weighing about 500kg and covered in Cyrillic writing. They are getting ready for the daily desert patrol, when they will be split up into smaller groups of 15. Idris has exchanged his white turban for a tar-coloured one, and he is wearing a green burnous - a long, hooded cloak. Cigarettes are distributed among the men. They share them as if they could be their last and debate bits of news and rumours from other parts of the country received via mobile phone. Where and when was the last assault? Was anyone wounded? Have any family members or friends given their lives? How are our people in the refugee camps? "Allahu akbar," they scream. God is great.
Then they climb in their jeeps. The front windscreens are folded down - "To avoid reflecting the sunlight, which may very well give us away," says the driver. As they leave the campsite, their boyish excitement gives way to tension. Farawija disappears in a dusty cloud. Idris sits surrounded by rebels, machine-guns, grenades and boxes filled with ammunition. His eyes are closed, his lips tight. Fear? "No. I bet we will run into the enemy today."
The patrol crisscrosses through Darfur country; we see pillaged villages, wells buried in sand, mass graves and camel skeletons. The air trembles in the afternoon heat of this slowly dying, beaten land.
"Stop!" yells the man handling the large machine-gun mounted on the jeep's bonnet. At the shimmering horizon, the contours of five ghostly camel-riders, looking as if they are drifting above the desert floor, appear. They are heading this way. The rebels jump from the car, as Idris covers them from behind a thorny bush. Tense minutes of waiting turn into hours. Fingers curl around triggers, ready to shoot. The ghosts are coming closer. We see their white turbans, their sunburnt faces, the belts of bullets around their chests.
Suddenly, the leader of the patrol jumps from his hiding place, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of welcome. Greetings are exchanged. "Brothers," says the leader to one of the camel-riders, "We had almost opened fire on you. Praise Allah!"
The tension is gone, as we realise these are comrades returning from the refugee camp at Oure Cassoni. There's an atmosphere of festive excitement. Someone releases a salvo of gunfire into the air in celebration.
Only Idris looks utterly disappointed - as if his birthday party has been spoiled. "Tomorrow is another day," he says, and stretches out in the shadow of a tree for a nap.
Timeline: how the Darfur disaster unfolded
2003 The conflict begins when rebel groups - Muslim militants of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - attack government targets, accusing them of neglecting the region and oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs.
The government retaliates with a campaign of aerial bombardment in support of ground attacks by an Arab militia, the Janjaweed, recruited from local tribes. More than two million people flee their homes, many of them to eastern Chad.
2004 The United Nations describes Darfur as the "worst humanitarian crisis" in the world.
2005 The International Criminal Court announces that it will launch a formal investigation into suspected war crimes in Darfur.
2006 Attempts by the African Union - a grouping of African states - to end the conflict results in a peace deal being signed. The government agrees to disarm Janjaweed - although there is little evidence to suggest this has happened.
2007 Sudan agrees to allow a UN force to replace the small African Union peacekeeping force. After four years of fighting, more than two million people are living in refugee camps.
