Herat

The first landing in Kabul is white-knuckled and spectacular. Beneath us, the azure blue of the Straights of Hormuz have given way to the wind-scoured deserts of Iran, then the frozen plains surrounding Kandahar, before the Hindu Kush erupts upward like a thrusting knife that threatens to cut us from the sky. I spend the flight with my face glued to the window. Images remain with me. The mountains outcrops of Oman’s Musandam Govenorate that jut from a sea of liquid silver like so many flooded peaks. Dust-storms racing below us across the cold brown plains inland of Bandar-e-Abbas. The spectacular faulting of the landscape, of Bazman’s rugged and striated peak, vast salt lakes along Afghanistan’s southern border, and the smattering of tiny muddy hamlets somehow eking survival from wildness. As we bypass Kandahar, subdued under a riming of frozen snow, I notice an object hovering a few thousand feet below us and see the dull, unmistakable silhouette of a military drone.

Kabul Valley seems to have just one way in and one way out. Nestled in a crook of the Hindu Kush, the peaks here have not forgotten that they are the tail end of the Himalaya. They are fierce and snow-capped, and for the first few minutes, while we are still twenty minutes out, I watch them, enthralled.

Then we drop down, and the cloud rolls in.

We’re still at twenty-some thousand feet as I catch sight, through a hole in the grey, that shows a finger of rock and ice jabbing up at us, not very far away at all. As the plane kicks in the shifting air currents, I begin to pray that the pilot has good GPS. We bank and circle, looking for our path through the rock-studded clouds. When visibility next opens up, we’re slipping through a pass into the valley, and there’s a peak perpendicular with the starboard wing, another straight off the port. The pilot’s found his way in, and there’s not much wriggle-room.

In late February, Kabul is still very much in the grip of the winter air that floods down the mountainsides and pools in its wide dun basin. The ground is hard with frost, desiccated with sheaves of windblown dust. The city itself has a squat profile, walled compounds and wide avenues punctuated by minarets and guard-towers. In the harsh afternoon sunlight, the mountains that peer down are crisp and severe.

The tension here is felt as soon as we disembark the aircraft. It’s an unspoken recognition that the context has changed. No longer Kansas. This is my first trip to Afghanistan, so if arriving here has always felt heavy, I have no idea. Multiple friends have reported that since last month’s deadly assault on the Taverna du Liban, a popular expatriate hangout, there has been a particularly sombre feel in the international community. Regardless, Afghanistan is heading for a choppy season- pending elections and an anticipated drawdown of foreign troops are likely to see an increase in destabilizing attacks. The place exhales a sullen anxiety.

It’s not helped by my immediate circumstances. My choice of reading on the plane in is Washington Post journalist and Pullitzer Prize winner Joby Warrick’s The Triple Agent, a gripping telling of the al Qaeda operative who blew himself and eight CIA officers up inside an FOB in eastern Afghanistan. As we stand in line to have our luggage collected, C. passes round his cell-phone. His team survived a suicide bombing here some years back, and he’s jokingly showing off images he’s snapped of the head of the hapless jihadi, neatly separated from its shoulders.

His subtext is clear. This is where we are, boys.

For all the callous joking, I like my team. C. is a gruff bear of a guy, ex-serviceman and a veteran of hard times and places both in the military and as an aid-worker, all but unapproachable any hour prior to noon, but knowledgeable, jovial and with a story for every occasion.

R. is newer to this line of work- like me this is his first trip to Afghanistan, and like me he’s a little edgy at first- but you wouldn’t know it to speak to him. He’s smart, sharp, a real pro, and good-natured to round it all off.

K. is from one of the ex-Soviet republics and a former special forces operator. He’s cool and switched on, with a sense of humour as dry as triple-distilled vodka, so that the only way you can tell he’s joking is the sharp little gleam in his eye and the suggestion of a curl at one corner of his mouth. I ask him if he’s ever been to Afghanistan before, and he looks at me a beat before replying,

“I don’t remember.”

Given that the country is about to celebrate a 25th anniversary commemorating getting rid of the Soviets, I remind myself not to stand too close to him.

Blackhawks are circling as we cross the concrete to the domestic terminal. Two of them to begin with, then joined by two more, then two more, and, finally, a pair of Mi-8s, all filling the city air with their thrumming, doing loops of the metropolitan area. I note the two observation blimps with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Their purpose is obvious, but it’s still a little odd to see them hanging in the blue, oddly out of place above this cold, dusty city.

We stop for a cigarette break. I’m the odd one out here, the token non-smoker. We stand on the flat expanse of the airport forecourt, the air cold but the sun strong. The threat of car-bombs means that no vehicles of any sort can approach the terminals, and there’s a straggling line of arriving passengers and their luggage picking their way across to the first of many checkpoints leading into the city.

K. smokes thin little cigarettes.

“0.01 percent nicotine, 0.01 percent tar,” he tells me happily, and smokes two for every one that C. and R. light up.

I’m reluctant to board a domestic Afghan airliner- I have heard only bad things about Ariana- or, as it’s less affectionately known, Scary-ana- but the MD-11 is in decent shape (on the outside at least), and after a while circling the valley, we clear the mountain pass.

But not the mountains.

I’ve flown over the Rockies, over the Alps (northern and Southern), flown in and out of the Himalaya. I love my mountains and make no secret of it. So when I say I’ve never seen mountains like these before, I’m not being dramatic.

We fly for an hour westward in a commercial jet. During that time, the mountains don’t stop. Peak after peak, gashed ravines and wild peaks. Winter seas them blanketed in white, so only the sharpest ridgelines stand out in rocky contrast. We fly at 25,000 feet, and the crests seem to break not that far beneath us. Habitation is all but nonexistent. There are no roads, no towns, no evidence at all that people live here, or ever have. This place defines rugged. I am awestruck and spend the flight peering from the porthole.

The sun has fallen when we land in Herat, and is nothing more than a crimson smudge backlighting an outcrop several hundred feet high. The mountains have given way at what feels like the last minute to a snowless plain. We disembark into cold night air. Helicopter gunships lurk like oversized wasps on the apron.

We’re met by J. and A., our local fixers. J. has a face round as a moon, with intelligent eyes and a warm, patient smile which he shares with us often. Clean-shaven with short dark hair, he looks less like the typical Afghans portrayed in the media (most often the Pashtun from the east of the nation), and more Iranian. Herat is a border-town, with solid road links to both Iran and Tajikistan, and this difference- both cultural and economic- has made all the difference to the relative stability of this western province.

J.’s offsider A. is a small, slender man who has a constant sense of doing about him. During the week we spend with him, he becomes our go-to guy to get things happening, and he is never off his cell-phone, to the point that I’m convinced he’s running a business- or three- on the side. Hopefully in the saffron trade. A. has two wives and eight kids, the youngest of which we learn was born just a day or two before we arrived. He later informs us with a sheepish smile that he’s done with having children now.

The four westerners cram into an unmarked SUV, while the Afghans chase ahead in a red sedan with sunken suspension. The airport is twenty clicks outside town, joined by a single straight stretch of highway.

We race into the darkness, swerving around trucks, or vehicles stalled at the roadside. The Kandahar Highway has all the hallmarks of a popular target. Passengers from every flight- including expat aid workers, contractors or government officials- have no choice but to take it. It hasn’t been bombed in about six months, when an IED went off next to the police checkpoint at the end of the bridge. As J. pointed out to us in his written briefing, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s a wrong-place wrong-time equation, but the odds are good these days. We don’t slow until we hit town.

Herat is Afghanistan, but not the Afghanistan portrayed in the media- of constant suicide bombings, complex insurgent attacks, and soldiers in body-armour patrolling dusty laneways. The city sits in the valley of the Hari River, where the Hindu Kush peters out into a series of serrated spurs and finally crumble to dust. From a good vantage in the city, you can see mountains on three sides. To the north, a low brown ridge like crushed velvet catches the morning light in folds in its flank. South and east, snowcapped ridges and peaks dominate the horizon, and only westward, towards Iran, is the landscape calm.

The Hindu Kush makes Afghanistan. It has carved a tough and resilient mountain people, at home in a harsh climate, and all the tougher for it. It has contributed to the rise of clans and tribes, separated by valleys and by winter snows that isolate them for months at a time and so make them fiercely independent and cohesive. And it has in effect created two nations- one to the south and east of the dividing range, and another to the north and west.

Security is tight in Herat. There are armed opposition groups in the surrounding countryside, hostile to government and to outsiders, and anybody perceived as helping them. Variations on the Taliban-allied militias have their reach even this far west, as well as local militias, disenfranchised tribal leaders and criminal gangs. The fragile government in Afghanistan is a breeding ground for this low-level anarchy, and Herat has had its share of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, the most recent of which occurred a fortnight before our arrival when two election workers were shot dead.

None the less, it has none of the obvious trappings of a war-zone. There are no soldiers in evidence on the street, no coalition convoys or overt military presence to be seen. Compounds are walled and wired, guards standing watch, but life goes on in the streets much like it would in any other south Asian city.

There is bustle and there is energy, and the economy is reportedly in a solid upswing. This bodes well for stability. The streets are full, traffic is congested, and about the roundabouts and streetsides, shops are full of household goods and thronged with pedestrians. Little red motorbike tri-shaws, the trailers oddly tipped back at an awkward thirty degrees, run about laden with passengers and boxed cargo, while battered Toyota Hi-Ace vans, tailgates open and innards stripped out to cram fares, are the workhorses of the city’s public transportation network. Off-street shopping malls house glass-fronted stalls loaded with consumer electronics, children’s clothing and kitchenwares. Life goes on.

We don’t meander and we don’t loiter. We move quickly from compound to compound, and our observations of the city itself are snatched during moments when our scanning for threats lapses. While the city might be stable, we know that there are still hostile elements here, and an SUV full of expats makes for a valuable target. We travel in unmarked, unarmoured vehicles without any form of protection other than anonimity- as it should be- but we’re not silly about it, and we know we have no real protection if something should go wrong. The atmosphere, however, is one of focus, not of fear, and the vibe we get off the city is generally good.

If there’s an exception, it’s at the Blue Mosque.

We’ve taken an hour off from work and A. has offered to show us a little of the city. We visit the spectacular Citadel, a grand sandstone-brick structure first laid down in the time of Alexander the Great and more recently restored to superb condition courtesy of the Aga Khan Foundation. We wander the footpaths and battlements, enjoying the sweeping curves of the architecture and the prominent views it allows from its higher towers. Frozen snow lurks in the shadows. We look out across flat-roofed houses pierced by minarets, and cooking smoke hangs with a dusty haze in the still air. The sky is an aching blue that leaves outlines so sharp they look as though they could cut.

On the northern edge of town we see the Martyr’s Museum, a monument to those who gave their lives fighting the Soviet invaders during the 1980s. In particular it commemorates the Herat uprising of 1979, when the people of Herat rose up against the Soviet-backed government, and were subsequently brutally repressed, with as many as 25,000 killed. Ismail Khan, now a local legend, rose to lead one of the most significant anti-Soviet Mujaheddin, and later allied himself with Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance against the Taliban until fleeing to Iran. He returned to Herat to support US action against the Taliban, and in late 2001, Herat was liberated and Khan became provincial Governor.

(As an interesting aside- the liberation of Herat from the Taliban by US and coalition troops reportedly involved covert action by anti-Taliban factions within the area, but also Iranian operatives who crossed the border in support of US intervention. Amazing.)

The Museum is a large rotunda with Arabic calligraphy adorning the tiled outer walls. Captured Soviet-era weaponry- everything from small mortars and anti-aircraft guns, to an unmistakable Mi-24 gunship- are scattered about the grounds. Inside, the main hall has another display of weapons, from flintlock rifles of the 1800s, their stocks meticulously inlaid with mother-of-pearl, to real [deactivated] landmines, PPSh World War Two-era submachine-guns and modern PKM drum-fed machine-guns.

Upstairs, a circular diorama, a combination of fresco wall-paintings and scale models, depicts the Herat uprising in gruesome but startlingly powerful detail. Painted portraits of mujaheddin who gave their lives fighting the Soviets line the walls, each name prefaced by the title Shaheed– Martyr.

On a hill along from the Museum sits the US Consulate, notable for being the target of a complex attack in September. Ten assailants in suicide vests and driving VBIEDs attacked the compound with bombs and firearms, killing a number of local security forces and bystanders, but failing to gain entry to the compound itself.

The attack- otherwise unremarkable in a nation that has seen dozens like it over the last decade- is notable more for understanding the intelligence behind it. Media reported that all ten attackers were killed, while apparently in reality, two were seized alive but reported killed by local forces, and now languish at the pleasure of the Afghan Government in a facility somewhere.

Afghan and US intelligence forces both reportedly knew about the attack beforehand- right down to the number plates of the vehicles involved, and the names and profiles of the attackers. The decision was made to allow the attackers to converge on the Consulate and carry out their attack, knowing that adequate defenses would prevent them breaching their target. This was preferable to attempting to thwart the attack early and having the bombers detonate in a less controlled environment or, worse, risk them escaping into the city where they would be uncontrollable. The decision cost the lives of six local security guards working at the Consulate, but such is the harsh mathematics of counter-terrorism.

Four ancient minarets stand crumbling, outlined against the crisp sky. Vast and without structure to support them, they look almost like abandoned chimney-stacks, the remnants of some industrial complex relegated to history. We get out of the cars and observe them briefly, standing next to a man selling oranges from a bicycle stall. The British allegedly used the grand structures as targets for gunnery practice during their war with Persia in the mid-1800s. The pock-marks remain. It’s sad to see such treasures so degraded and disrespected.

When we finally make it to the Blue Mosque, the al-Asr prayer is finishing, and the devout are streaming out beneath the blue tiled minarets. The structure is grand and imposing. Delicate calligraphy patterns the walls as though a thousand small birds have dipped their feet in ink and run riot. In the deep shaded courtyard, snowdrifts have frozen like mounds of crystalized salt, treacherous underfoot.

It’s one of the few moments I feel more than just wary in Herat, but outright threatened. I’m no paranoiac- I have deep respect for Islam and its practitioners, and the years I’ve spent in Muslim countries and with Muslim friends and colleagues leave me with no doubt as to the peaceful heart of the vast majority. But in a nation where a fundamentalist insurgency preaches violence against foreign occupiers and their allies, I have no doubt there are people walking past us who would happily see harm come to us- a sensation I’ve never experienced walking into a mosque before.

We four westerners glance at each other and exchange a few words to the effect of, “This is a bad time to be here,” and promptly lead A. back out onto the street and to the vehicles.

The days are gentle, cloudless with bright sunshine that leaves the sky blue like an ink-pot and shadows black like ravines. Stone walls gleam until the eyes hurt. Everything tastes fresh. I sleep well, leaving my hotel window cracked to allow the freezing night air to trickle in as I tuck down.

The mornings are bitterly cold. I join C., R. and K. as they have their post-breakfast nicotine fix, and the sun isn’t above the blast-walls yet. White smoke billows upwards. K. loves his thin cigarettes, and has A. pick up two cartons specifically for K. to take home with him.

Our last night, we have dinner at the team house. The food has been delicious throughout- meat so tender that it drips from the bone under its own weight when you pick it up, aromatic rather than spicy, all accompanied by fresh naan and yoghurt. We start the evening sharing conversation around a shisha pipe, sitting in the courtyard under blankets against the bitter night breeze and blowing smoke-rings as the air stills. The local variant has a lemon twist to it, fresh and delicious. Exhausted as our mission comes to a close, I fall asleep early.

I have a restless dream in which a familiar, rhythmic sound won’t let me settle. I come to slowly with a sense that something is not right. I’ve not been asleep long, and as my mind focuses, I hear a sharp tok-tok-tok-tok-tok in the middle distance.

Bursts of automatic gunfire, unmistakenly Kalashnikovs, volley back and forth.

I listen long enough to know it’s not happy fire. The chatter is interspersed with throatier bangs. I raise myself up at the window. Maybe a mile west, straight up the main thoroughfare, I watch the flash of a grenade exploding. That deep pop follows, and then more shooting.

I don’t stay at the window, but move to where my clothes are already laid out and dress in the darkness. I put my shoes on, pocket my flashlight and two phones, grab my bug-out bag and lie back in bed, listening.

A major attack isn’t likely in Herat, but we’re staying in one of only a couple of expat-standard hotels in the city, so it’s obviously on the target list. I try to make sense of the action, but it’s at a distance. Certainly not a threat where we are. I’m listening to see if it’s coming any closer.

The bed is in the dead space against the corner, below the window. That way if the windows are blasted inwards, the glass will fly over the top of me and I won’t be lacerated. I’d already done that calculation when I first moved in at the start of the trip, and each night as I’ve bedded down, I’ve settled right into the very corner, just in case. The way my mind works. I lie there a while, and after some time, the shooting fades.

My local mobile buzzes. It’s J.. He tells us there’s an ongoing assault on a checkpoint in District 7, but we should still be able to make our flight in the morning as the airport is in a different direction.

Whether it’s a local feud, a deliberate attack on a government position by armed opposition, or part of a bigger operation isn’t clear right now. I keep listening. With no further shooting or blasts, I eventually remove my gear and fatigue takes me into a light sleep. Car tires crunch the gravel roundabout outside the hotel, and every crackle jolts me awake again, my nerves on edge. Come five a.m. when we have to get up to catch our flight, I’m not feeling very rested.

Seven of us squeeze into the SUV as we race back to the airport. I note the driver sticks stubbornly to the middle of the broad, empty avenues- standard practice in an environment notorious for roadside bombs, but we arrive without incident. The access road to the airport is a snaking maze of guards, boom-gates and 12-foot cement blast walls that make the approach feel like a level to Castle Wolfenstein.

A sign scrawled in front of the first checkpoint reads “Switch off ECMs”- the electronic counter-measures that block radio frequencies in an attempt to thwart phone-triggered booby-traps. Military convoys carry them. The envelope of supposed safety they create is called a ‘bubble’, although allegedly, insurgents are now setting up devices with long leads that run out to receivers planted outside the bubble’s perimeter, still allowing devices to be initiated remotely.

From 20,000 feet, the pre-dawn haze clears, and I watch the Hindu Kush slip by just underneath us. They keep my attention for the full hour. I find myself fantasizing about returning when there is more stability with my backcountry skis. Some of the lines look spectacular.

It’s dusty in Kabul. The mountains are lost behind a brown murk. We clear checkpoints and meet our driver in an unmarked pickup truck who slips us through the streets. It’s a Friday morning, so traffic is light.

We spend the hours before our flight out working at the team house. Blast-film covers the windows, to prevent them flying inwards in lacerating shards should a bomb go off nearby, as one did not too long ago.

During our brief passage through the city, Kabul looks to be one long stretch of blast wall. Grey cement fronts the avenues, topped with sandbags, concertina wire and guard-towers. Armed personnel stand watch at every gate and atop many of the walls. The thin weekend traffic gives the city a slightly abandoned feel, as though everybody is bunkered down.

The haze begins to clear. The morning air is cold and refreshing. We stretch our legs on the roof of the compound, from which we can see the old fortress, Bala Hissar, dominating the city skyline. Further round, and TV Hill bristles with antennae. Squat, one-storey flat-roofed dwellings crawl up the slopes like a moss. Everything is brown with just a frosting of rotten snow lining the shadows.

My folks lived here, back in the ‘70s. While the geology of Kabul might not have changed since their time here, I reflect that they probably wouldn’t recognize the city as it is today. With the changes brought about during the Soviet occupation, its widespread destruction during the civil wars of the 1990s, and now the reconstruction in an era of deep insecurity, both the vibe and appearance on its broad streets must be a world apart.

Getting back to the airport is a gauntlet of security checks. Vehicles are searched for explosives and magnetic limpet-mines. I receive the cosiest pat-downs I’ve had since a thorough fondling I was given by Ethiopian security back in 2003. K. counts of 12 separate security checkpoints, the first beginning a good mile or more out from the airport proper, and the last being as we stand on the tarmac at the foot of the stairs to the plane.

At one security checkpoint, the gruff guard calls out to him,

“Where are you from?”

K. tells him, a little reluctantly.

“This you bag?”

He nods.

The guard eyes him with suspicion for a few moments, and we all have a brief what now moment.

“You have smoking problem,” the guard says, referencing the two cartons in K.’s luggage, and we all break into guffaws.

Standing next to me as we board the plane is an Afghan family- father, mother, daughter and son. The girl is maybe five, the boy three, but what’s striking is the little girl’s blonde hair and blue eyes, compared to the rest of her family’s more typical dark colouring. She has their rosy cheeks, and she is chattering away in Dari, a cute little thing in pigtails that so clearly belongs and yet looks so thoroughly different. I presume that both parents have some Russian genes in their recent history- they are both young- but it also reminds me that the term ‘Aryan’ arose from this corner of the world, and that it’s not uncommon to find Afghans with green, grey or blue eyes. I wonder with amusement whether the bigots of the Aryan Nation ever realise that Afghanistan’s national airline- Ariana- draws its name from the same origin as theirs.

I get glimpses of the city as we fly out that afternoon, where breaks in the clouds let me peer past the towering pyramids of the Hindu Kush and into its dusty basin.

It’s been strange for me being here. I grew up on slideshows from my parents’ time here. A little faded with time, and 1970s imaging processes, I credit hearing tales of Afghanistan when I was a young boy with the start of my journey to becoming an aid worker. My parents adored the place, and they still talk about it with wistfulness, seasoned heavily with grief at what the place went through after they left.

It’s a place I’ve wanted to visit for many years, and in my brief visit this time, Afghanistan had a disproportional impact on me. The wildness, the ruggedness, the beauty, and the resilience of the people I met, all left a mark. I both hope and believe that this will not be my last trip to the place. I truly wish that when I next visit, its people will be in a securer, more stable environment than they are now. I’m no fool. I understand well many of the complex dynamics at play in this nation that undermine dreams and efforts towards a lasting peace. None the less, that’s my prayer, and one which left my soul earnestly as I watched the last of the mountains slip away beneath me, and I said au revoir to Afghanistan.

NB: Please forgive the over-processed images. I didn’t have my full camera gear with me, only the camera on my iPhone, and a little GoPro. Bored, I played with a new filters app called “Stackables” which has jazzed them up a little, at the expense of my usual style…

The Ambush (Part 3 of 3): Evac

Note: This is the third in a three-part account of a security incident I was involved with in late 2007, in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.  Click here to read the first part, and here to read the second.  I’m sharing this story for World Humanitarian Day (19 August), which honours aid workers, and remembers those killed and injured in the line of duty.

Please note that the story contains an account of violence that readers who have been exposed to critical incidents themselves may find disturbing.

Evac

The stretch of sun-seared bitumen from Nyala airport into the town itself passes along a desolate acreage of dry scrubland- bare earth pocked with low grey houses, rising to a couple of low scraggy hills in one direction, and otherwise opens out to the brown and barren expanse of the semi-arid Sahel. Not far from here is the vast sprawl of Otash camp, the makeshift home these past four years to tens of thousands of internally displaced Sudanese relying on international assistance to survive.

I’m sitting in the back of another logo’d Land Cruiser eerily similar to the one I left this town in earlier today, under vastly different circumstances; in some ways a vastly different person.

It’s an ambulance-style setup as well, with bench-seats running along the hull and facing each other over an empty bay. I can’t help thinking of Abdul and how, seven hours ago I was kneeling by his head trying to keep him alive as we jarred our escape along the vehicle-tracks of the savannah south and west of here.

I’m sitting opposite Emmanuel. His face is drawn and weary, but there’s also inexpressible relief there. He looks at me, and although there’s nothing funny about today, he smiles and shakes his big dark head.

“Truly,” he says, “You are a child of God.”

I thank him, a wry smile that is part acceptance, part bemusement twisting my lips. It’s an odd compliment. It’s an odd time for it. But I take it.

He elaborates.

“They shot you,” he says. “But nothing happened.”

I nod, and get a funny feeling. I think he’s talking about the way our assailant emptied his clip through the windows of the four-by-four and the dozen or so bullets that must have whipped through that tight space but leaving us alive.

But I’m wrong.

Flight Out

The chopper comes about four in the afternoon. The attack happened a little before eleven, which means we’ve been out here for a little over five hours. Hot, thirsty, exhausted. But we’re all alive.

It’s a big Mi-8 Hip, a behemoth of an aircraft that seats 24 passengers plus crew, with round portal windows and a ramp that drops down at the back.

We’ve been hearing word that the thing is on its way for a few hours when it finally materializes. It wasn’t really until about half an hour earlier that we get confirmation that yes, this time it’s actually taken off. Then we hear that the pilots can’t find the village. ‘Bul-Bul’ isn’t a helpful reference, and they’ve had to put down a couple of places already, looking for us. But at least this confirms to us that it’s actually airborne.

We hear it whopping through the air a couple of minutes before it comes into sight over the low scrub, and the sheer release of tension I feel finally seeing it hovering over the village makes up for the growing frustration I’ve been feeling as reports of our pending evacuation begin to to feel less and less believable.

There’s a big open patch of ground in front of the health hut, at least the size of a soccer pitch, and the brute hangs there like a giant airborne cricket before slowly putting down, back-wheels and then front-wheels. It is all white with a black-stencilled designation on the airframe.

The ramp at the rear drops down, and four medics carrying a stretcher between them come running out, heads low beneath the thumping blades. They could only have made a more dramatic entry if they’d parachuted into the village from on high. The whole community has turned out to watch them. Soldiers are stacked in the tray of the pickup truck, leaning nonchalantly on their weapons as though they aren’t totally digging the fuss.

They put the stretcher down in the open area in front of the compound, and inside I organize a few men to transfer Abdul back onto the bench, after which we litter him outside and transfer him over. The lead doctor pours over him, consulting in Arabic with the nurse. Within a minute there’s another drip in him, being held aloft by a female orderly.

There are orders now. There’s an Africa Union official with the flight, fair skinned but fluent in Arabic, and I suspect he’s Egyptian, or maybe Moroccan. He’s telling us to get onboard quickly. They don’t want to stay on the ground longer than absolutely necessary.

There’s a brief discussion going on. The drivers are talking about staying with their vehicles and driving them home. Emmanuel is telling them no way. Eventually they acquiesce. I watch the proceedings, standing by with my backpack until I’m waved onboard through the rear ramp. When I get into the cabin, Mohammed and Essam are already seated, and Mohammed’s head is being rebandaged.

I sit near the front by one of the round windows. The escape exit is marked with Cyrillic words. I muse to myself that I never thought I’d be so happy to be inside an aircraft stamped with Russian letters. Then they’re loading Abdul into the back on his stretcher, a calm little hive of activity, and the ramp is closing. The curious villagers are waved back.

The engine rotations increase and the noise level in the helicopter ramps up. I’m handed a pair of earphones. There’s a curious feeling as the vehicle goes weightless, and then we’re hovering.

I look out of the window. The whole village is there, in a giant semi-circle, must be three hundred people. The two technicals loaded with armed militia. Men in their robes. Women in bright coloured print dresses and headscarfs, all fluttering in the wind. Our exit is like something from a Hollywood movie. I note it at the time.

Then the nose dips, and we’re heading east.

***

I’m in a funk of exhausted relief. There’s not a whole lot going through my head. I’m staring out of the windows watching Darfur slip beneath us a few hundred feet down. Flat-topped acacia trees and thorny scrub, little clusters of villages and the outlines of pasture-lands. Wadis are marked by lines of dark green where foliage taps the underground moisture. In the late afternoon sun, the brown landscape takes on warm hues.

The confused euphoria of survival sets in.

Nyala

Approaching Nyala, the helicopter banks over the outskirts of town. I can see the IDP camps laid out beneath us, white and brown speckled over the dusty landscape like a skin-rash. They’re vast. I’ve noted them every time I’ve flown in and out of here.

Touching down on the apron moments later, and I see the Sudanese helicopter gunships lined up a few dozen yards from where the UN Humanitarian Air Service flight disgorges its daily quotient of arriving aid workers. It’s one of the blatant ironies of this corner of the world.

The blades go still and the vibrating leaves a remnant that tingles in all the muscles. The ramp opens. Hot daylight and the perfume of AvGas spills into the cabin.

I’m the last of us out, and I step into a mob of chaos. It seems half of Nyala is out here to meet us. I can see a score of people from our office. Family members of the staff involved surge forward. Emergency personnel and aid-workers with some of the medical charities are there. There’s a small fleet of four-by-fours and an ambulance.

By the time I’m out of the chopper, a throng of people has surrounded Abdul’s stretcher. There’s crying and loud voices. Over it all, a set of jet engines is whining loudly. People are trying to make decisions, others are trying to keep the crowd thin. I stand well back.

I feel awkward and a little left out. A couple of the senior expats from our office come over and welcome me back. They look worn and a little haggard. They haven’t been with us in person, but they’ve been trying to manage the crisis from this end, knowing only that their friends and colleagues are in serious trouble. It’s been an incredibly distressing experience.

I see the freshly-bandaged Mohammed being led away.

“You’re being medevac’d to Khartoum,” I’m told. “The plane is waiting.”

The UNHAS flight is the one standing nearby, jets idling and the rear door still open. I can see white faces peering through the windows at the commotion on the apron, but I shake my head.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I want to stay here.”

There’s a little pressure to convince me, and Essam too, but in the end Mohammed flies without us, a nurse staying with him until he reaches the hospital. He’ll be stitched up and treated for a mild concussion, and released without serious physical harm.

There’s still a mob around Abdul. The medics are deliberating. He’s still having fluids pumped into him. They’re very concerned for him and he’s not out of the woods yet. He’s fragile and his blood pressure has bottomed out. They want to fly him to Khartoum at once, but he’s too weak to fly so they’ll need to keep him in Nyala overnight. It isn’t good news.

I’m standing a little to one side when a Sudanese solider walks up to me and starts yelling. He looks nineteen, and he’s got some serious agro. I’m a head taller than him, and I suddenly feel a burst of intense fury, the likes of which I’ve rarely felt in my life. I’m standing there, covered in the dried blood of a colleague, having just had the most intense day of my life. There’s a whole knot of people clogging up the runway, and this punk has the audacity to pick on me. I heckle up and raise my voice back at him, gesturing the injured man on the stretcher, and his attitude arcs up in response. We’re nose-to-nose, and the only thing that stops me taking a swing at him is the knowledge that he has two comrades with assault-rifles nearby, watching. I back down, but stay furious for hours afterwards at the memory.

Later I get a taste of more of the attitude that was coming our way. Abraham, our office manager, tells me that as I stepped out of the back of the aircraft, one of the other soldiers started gesturing at me, yelling in Arabic,

“Why is he okay? They should have shot that one!”

I’m shocked to hear the story. I’ve never been the subject of such hatred before.

***

The full story doesn’t come out until we start to debrief. We have a lot of those over the next few days. First off, we report back to the office managers what happened- myself, Emmanuel and the two drivers. Essam comes back from the hospital a little later after getting stitched up, and travels to Khartoum the next day.

After the first debrief, we report in to the Africa Union base commander. We thank him for sending his chopper to get us out and explain what happened. He’s a Nigerian soldier, thickset and short in stature and temper. He bawls out the office Manager for allowing us to be travelling on a road so unsafe that even his own armored personnel carriers won’t travel on- unfairly, as Abraham wasn’t in town that morning and it wasn’t his decision.

I’m checked out by the base medic, who washes my arm and examines the shrapnel punctures. He scolds me for spending the day covered in blood and reminds me that it’s a risk of infection, especially when I have open wounds of my own. To be honest I’d stopped noticing the stuff. The clothes I’m wearing are still caked in the stuff and I don’t really realise. When I get back to Melbourne I’ll need to have a blood test for Hepatitis and HIV, just to be safe, but I come back clean.

We walk out between the rows of prefab huts, past shirtless grunts kicking around a football in the post-dusk glow, and eventually past the sandbagged nests where sentries with 7.62mm machine-guns crouch outside the wire gates beneath their kevlar helmets. When we get back to the office, the light is fading and fast has broken, and there is a tranquility over the city as families share the start of the evening meal. Beside our gate, four men in off-white robes sit on a thatched mat and invite us to join them in a piece of shared flat-bread. We greet them and gracefully decline. The normalcy aches.

It’s not really until I hear the whole story first-hand from Issa and Essam, both of whom were awake throughout the assault, that I begin accepting what happened that morning, and even then it takes me a couple of days to release the last of the denial.

Details

I run it through again in my head.

The attack is brutal, without warning and, even now, without clear motive beyond banditry. Nobody in our vehicle sees the assailants in the bush, and no effort is made by the attackers to stop either vehicle peacefully.  The attack begins with murderous intent.

In the two or three seconds of that first attack, as far as we can surmise, the gunman squeezes off the better part of an entire clip through the moving vehicle. Looking at the shot-out windows, the number of holes in the fuselage, and the injuries suffered by the staff, we estimate no less than a dozen bullets travel through that tiny space, and possibly more. Each one of us is spared death by pure chance. Millimetres of change in the angle of the muzzle, fractions of seconds’ difference in the firing of the rounds, and any one of the three bullets that go into the strut behind my head could have gone through it instead; the bullet that embeds itself in Essam’s bicep may have gone through his chest- or simply torn out the artery in his upper arm and bled him out; the round that lodges in the sill above the driver’s window could have struck Issa directly; and either one of the slugs that strike Mohammed or Abdul could have killed them outright. In Mohammed’s case, two or three millimeters lower and his head would have blown open. In Abdul’s, a single millimeter lower, and the ensuing damage would kill him in minutes, if not instantaneously.

In those early seconds, Mohammed and Abdul are both knocked unconscious, the former landing beneath the latter. Essam, who immediately realises what’s happening, collapses into his seat and pretends to be dead throughout the entire episode, but concentrating intently on what’s happening. Only Issa and I interact with the gunmen. Essam makes no sign that he’s alive even as his body is roughly searched for valuables by the first attacker, and although he turns his radio down, he keeps it close to him. It’s Essam, listening to what happens next, who may well have saved all of us.

It’s after I’m back in the car, when I’m began to sense that something is really wrong, that things start to go badly. I hand over my money, while Issa stands helplessly by as the two gunmen start talking.

As I’m looking forward through the windshield, my hands still raised, the first gunman, who did all the shooting, raises his weapon and points it at me. According to Issa, he’s agitated and aggressive, highly nervous. Issa wonders whether he might be on drugs. The other guy seems far more frightened, and quieter.

The first gunman addresses Issa.

“Tell him,” he instructs, jerking the gun at me, “That I’m going to kill him.”

Issa, mercifully, does nothing of the kind. He stands there, helpless. I, in my ignorance of Arabic, have no awareness of the plans in store for me.

The gunman adjusts his grip on the gun where it’s levelled on my chest and, ten paces from where I’m sitting, pulls the trigger.

Both Issa and Essam hear the gun click.

The gunman, frustrated, turns to his companion, standing there watching events unfold.

“You finish them off,” he orders.

The other refuses. Issa says he appears reluctant.

“Okay,” says the first, irritated. “Give me your gun. I’ll do it.”

We’re still not entirely sure what happens next to change things. What we know is that Essam, playing dead in the back seat and listening to our murder being discussed, knows that there are few options left. He’s turned his radio back on and is crouched in the back seat, trying to raise the other vehicle. With the volume turned up, its his radio that now chatters to life as Emmanuel comes back to us over the net asking what’s happening.

Although we’ll never know, it’s very possible that the sound of the voice over the radio startles the two gunmen into realising that there are more of us out there, and that perhaps help is on its way. At any rate, without a further word, both men turn and walk off into the bush, leaving us alive. Issa bolts for the driver’s seat, and champion as he is, drives us the mile or two to our first stopping-point in a heavy four-wheel-drive on soft sand, with one of the tyres shot to hell.

We have a lot of heroes to thank that day.

***

We also learn about doings in Nyala. About the sheer panic in the office when the news first breaks that we’ve been attacked and that several of the team- it isn’t clear who or how seriously- are shot. Then about the rapid response that’s undertaken to get us home safe.

The message reaches Nyala about ten minutes after we get to Bul-Bul. They’re eventually able to make contact via cell-phone by standing on the top of a pickup truck. That means it’s not quite an hour since the shooting. From there, the office mobilise and contact the Africa Union. Within forty-five minutes of the news coming through, there’s a chopper on the apron in Nyala, fueled, with a crew and a medical staff, ready to lift off.

The Sudanese military takes three subsequent hours to give it official clearance to lift off and get us.

When I first hear that information I don’t have much energy left to respond emotionally to the news. Now, it makes my blood boil. I think how close Abdul came to dying on that table in the bush while we sat waiting for some piece of bureaucratic machinery to creak over- or worse, some malicious officer who would have been quite happy for some unwanted NGO worker to perish.

Aftermath

Abdul lives. Against all the odds.

We visit him that night in Nyala hospital. I remember the warmth of the evening air, and of families crowded into the hospital’s central courtyard around lamps, waiting for loved ones on the wards, bringing them food and themselves sharing the evening break-fast seated in circles on the ground, stew in coloured plastic pots and broth in copper kettles.

He lies on another guerney, under a fleece blanket and stripped to the waist, conscious but weak. We don’t spend long with him. We speak briefly with his brother, and there’s a draining concoction of gratefulness and concern. We pray for him that evening at that office, hoping he’ll make it through the night.

He does, and the next morning he’s flown to Khartoum, where his skull is x-rayed and it’s discovered that there are bone fragments piercing the brain, causing critical swelling. He undergoes emergency brain surgery to remove the shards and relieve the swelling, and by some miracle survives that too.

I spend several more days in Nyala, debriefing with the team, floaing through a strange sense of the surreal. My experience is at once intensely tangible and seared onto my brain in visceral clarity, and yet has left me oddly emotionally calm. I feel no grief, I sleep well, my appetite is not diminished. Although I get a little anxious retelling the story of what happened, the psychologist who is flown in to counsel us informs me I’m healthy and that I shouldn’t expect to experience any symptoms of psychological harm as a result of the experience. She’s right, and I don’t.

I leave Khartoum on an Emirates flight, in business class which the insurance company has agreed to pay for because my itinerary has had to be changed, and these are the only available seats; I’m very glad that we have an emergency travel policy.

The day I leave, I visit Essam and Mohammed. They’re both staying at our team-house in Khartoum for a few days before returning to Nyala. We’re glad to see each other, and as we re-tell our stories- with Mohammed for the first time- both men shed tears. Later I visit Abdul in hospital. He is happy to see me. He’s there with his family, about eight of them living out of a dingy room, but thankfully he’s got privacy from the rest of the hospital.

He doesn’t get up, which doesn’t surprise me, but it’s only later I realise it’s because the injury to his brain has left him paralysed down one side of his body. Although he regains some of his movement and the pain diminishes, he still hasn’t made a full recovery. He still works for the same organisation, but is confined to desk work, and walks with a cane. His is the one sad legacy from an experience that is otherwise miraculous- but even here, his survival is in the face of overwhelming odds.

The same is true for all of us. This particular set of circumstances could have been rolled on cosmic dice a hundred times, and in ninety-nine of those cases, not all of us would have lived.

The flight is delayed a little out of Khartoum. I wait in the business-class lounge with growing anxiety, and in my mind I recall that same sense of foreboding I had waiting for the helicopter to evacuate us from Bul-Bul, but thirty minutes behind schedule I’m shown through to a brand new business-class seat that goes completely flat. It’s going to take me twenty hours to get back to Melbourne and I know I should sleep. But it’s way too nice a berth for me to waste time unconscious, and I sit awake for several hours, sip white wine, and watch movies.

The constant hum of the engines eventually lulls me to sleep.

End

Images:

1. Untitled, from http://www.operationbrokensilence.com: ‘Rebuilding Darfur: How do we do it?’ (link embedded in photo)

2. From http://www.time.com: ‘Darfur Descends into Chaos’ (link embedded in photo)

World Humanitarian Day 2010: The Ambush (Part I of 3)

Tommorrow, August 19, is World Humanitarian Day. As I shared with you last year, it exists to commemorate the lives of the tens of thousands of people who work in disasters and emergencies in an effort to help people affected by tragedy and hardship. Held for the first time last year, it also remembers those who lay down their lives in the line of such work. On August 19, 2004, a truck-bomb was driven into the compound being used as the UN headquarters in Baghdad. 22 people, including the UN’s top humanitarian worker in Iraq, were killed in the aftermath.

The bombing of the Canal Hotel marked a shift in the aid context, after which humanitarian workers were increasingly seen as targets by people who- in contravention of international law- chose to attack them, whether for ideological, political or financial motivation.

It would be nice to be able to say that this trend is decreasing. However last year (as I’ve written previously) a higher portion of humanitarian workers were violently killed, injured or abducted than UN Peacekeeping soldiers. Earlier this year, seven staff working for the international NGO World Vision were corralled by extremists into their office in northern Pakistan and murdered with guns and grenades. Two weeks ago today, ten staff with the long-standing and highly-respected International Assistance Mission in Afghanistan were stopped on the road and executed, an attack claimed by the Taliban. There are many other incidents that happen each year, which get little notice globally, beyond the small community of international humanitarian workers.

In this vein I want to share with you a story that happened to several colleagues and I with the organisation I was working for at the time, during a field visit in Sudan’s volatile Darfur region. Those of you familiar with Darfur in late 2007 may recall details of the incident itself. The story is not a light one, and for those of you reading this who may have been exposed to violent situations yourselves, I’d ask you to exercise some discretion in deciding whether you want to keep reading.

In any critical incident it’s natural that memories of what happened differ slightly among various witnesses. During several rounds of debrief, both official and informal, several of us, including the three of us who were able to recall the whole incident, told our stories repeatedly, and they came up remarkably similar. The story below is my own perspective, but it matches closely enough to those of the others that discrepancies are insignificant, and gives a coherent and pretty accurate overview of what happened.

This is the first time in nearly three years that I’ve succeeded in writing out this account in its entirety, although I’ve told the story multiple times face-to-face, including to the Herald Sun who ran an article on it in early October 2007. I’ll share this over three consecutive posts, as it’s quite long (in true MoreAltitude style- would you expect anything less?).

Background

For those of you not familiar with Darfur, it’s a large and highly impoverished region in the west of northern Sudan. Roughly the size of France, it has a population of a little over 6 million people. Due to a complicated array of factors- including political disenfranchisement, social marginalization, religious colonialism, disputes over mineral resource rights, and tensions over natural resources such as water points and pasture land for cattle- a civil revolt took place in 2003 against the Khartoum-based government. Several rebel groups were involved, the largest and most significant being the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

Khartoum responded by sending in conventional forces, and also armed a militia group, the Janjawid, with interests in the area (allegedly populating some of its ranks with released prisoners). A brutal put-down ensued in which the civilian population bore the brunt of the violence. Thousands were killed, and up to three hundred thousand reportedly died from the knock-on effects of the war (displacement, disease, malnutrition). Villages were burned to the ground. A quarter of a million people fled to the deserts of eastern Chad, and two to three million fled to displaced persons camps in sites around the region.

The situation remained fluid and complex. The government lost control of the Janjawid, and the rebels split after various members signed different agreements with the government. Pre-existing ethnic tensions and resource disagreements created new lines of conflict in an area that was largely anarchic. Peacekeepers, under-resourced, without a clear mandate, and further crippled by Khartoum’s meddling, were unable to cover the vast, roadless terrain, and for the most part remained bunkered down behind wire fences in their bases.

By late 2007, the warfighting had broken down into a highly complex series of sub-conflicts with shifting battlefronts and alliances that changed weekly. There were at least twenty-seven different warring factions, and that number was changing. Banditry was rife. NGOs, habitually unarmed, made easy targets from which radios, vehicles and money could be pilfered with little risk or resistance. Between 4 and 5 million of Darfur’s population were considered ‘war-affected’, and at least half that number were reliant on UN and NGO support in some way.

I travelled to Darfur in September of that year on a brief support mission, to check in on some of the projects my office was funding in Darfur, and to spend time with our office in Nyala (capital of South Darfur) to see how they were doing, and what could be done to support them better. About a week into my trip, I went on what was planned to be a multi-day field visit south and west of Nyala, towards an area called Rehed-al-Birdi. I was with six colleagues, travelling in a pair of clearly-marked NGO Land Cruisers. We anticipated it would take us about four hours to reach our destination for the day.

Part I: Ambush

After the shooting stops, what I notice most is the silence. It is humming, tangible, pressing itself with force into my ears like some wrapped cloak protecting me from reality. But any sense of protection must be an illusion.

There’s no crying. No shouts of pain. Nobody yelling ‘Get Down!‘ Just that pressurised whine inside my head telling me something’s wrong.

I’m lying across the bench-seat at the front of the four-by-four, head towards Issa the driver who’s down here with me. My nose is inches from the dials of the heater and tape-deck. Black, plastic, slightly rimed with dust. The image of this mundane feature of the dashboard is seared onto my brain with crystal clarity even years later, so intensely is my brain seizing data.

Beads of safety glass have exploded across the inside of the vehicle. They’re sharp-edged little gems of crystalline aqua-marine and they’ve doused the foot-wells, blanketed the front seat, accumulated like blown sand in the creases in my utility vest.

The first conscious thought that goes through my head I hear with startling clarity: This is it. It’s really happening. It’s not a drill this time.

It’s followed moments later by a prayer, shot flare-like skywards in a moment of desperate faith: Jesus, I put this situation into your hands right now and trust you to get us out of here.

I stay very, very still and realise with a curious detachment that these may be my last moments alive.

It will be hours before I realise just how close I am to being right.

Earlier

The confluence of tiny decisions and circumstances that lead to the resolution of an event of magnitude can seem almost fickle. So minute are the influences that you’re left with a stark choice as, in truly human fashion, you build a narrative around them: either chance is supreme, without mercy or interest, and any coincidence is at best the random interaction of a million events preceding it or some outworking of chaos principles to which people are programmed to ascribe motive; or there is indeed some being we call God, whose fingerprints we find on those spectacular moments that define our lives, and by inference, the mundane and profane happenstance of our daily existence as well.

I recall the prickling sensation I have on the back of my neck standing at the checkout counter while replenishing my first-aid kit from a local pharmacy a week before leaving Australia; an odd sense I’m aware of even then that I’ll be needing the supplies.

I remember, today taking due note of irony, the fervour with which I wrestle my visa from the hands of the hostile bureaucracy of the Sudanese Embassy in London, and the relief I feel reaching Heathrow Airport with just forty minutes to spare before my flight.

I see myself sitting on the British Airways jetliner between Amman and Khartoum, dark in the middle of the night, a flight so empty that there are more flight attendants than passengers, and I am the only person sitting between bulkheads, musing on why nobody would want to be going to Sudan right now.

The entire trip to Darfur almost unravels when, upon reaching Khartoum, I discover that the local admin staff have failed to lodge my travel papers, and I spend a frantic three days unspooling red tape just so I can escape the capital. Speeding myself towards events of which I have no awareness.

***

Then the minutae of that morning, leaving Nyala. Events that don’t seem relevant in any way in the moment, and yet ultimately give rise to the fractions of seconds and tiny angles of trajectory that mean the difference between death and survival for five of us. Forgetting my travel documents in the compound so that we waste forty minutes going back to collect them. Waiting even longer on the edge of a dusty wadi at the end of town for Abdul. He isn’t meant to be in our vehicle at all but is hitching a ride down to Rehed to see his mother on his week off.

Before leaving the team house that morning, I go back to my room to put more money in my pockets. Just in case we’re stopped and robbed, I tell myself. It’s a principle we’re taught in security training.

I never hear about the local staff member who, walking through the Nyala market that morning, overhears rumours that there’s hostile activity on the road we’re going to be travelling. He deigns to tell his superiors that little gem of a factoid, and our mission is cleared to depart.

***

We stop beyond the second police checkpoint with the other vehicle, just as we hit the bush, and the four of us with walkie-talkies do a quick radio-check. We switch from the town channel to the one we can use out in the field and make sure we can all talk to one another. After just one week out here the Motorolla VHF handset already feels natural on my hip.

Then we’re traveling across the Sahel, all brown dust and long white grass and knots of leafy thorn bushes. The road is an unsealed vehicle track, double-rutted and sloughed with sand. We’re passing goat herders who show no signs of alarm. Emptied villages. Dry river-beds which we slow down to ford. A transport, passengers waving to us as they come towards us. No signs of danger. We’re all looking.

We’re the second vehicle. In the first is Ghanaian Emmanuel, the team leader, with a driver. We keep a distance from them. Two days ago we had two vehicles involved in an ambush on a road north of here. Because they were riding too closely together, both were snatched in one go. We don’t want that happening to us.

Behind me, back to the glass on the ambulance-style bench-seats, sits Essam- tall, gentle and quiet, with large hands. Opposite him is media man Mohammed, a warm, charming Sudanese man with a voice soft like a plush carpet. Next to Mohammed is Abdul- rotund, cheerful, loudly spoken. He speaks little English and although I’ve just met him we’ve been exchanging spurts of dialogue in our shoddy representations of each others’ tongues. I’ve recently learned Mafi Mushkila. Loosely translated, it means No Worries. I say it, and everybody laughs. Then I lapse into silence and watch the bush slip by.

They’re the last words I have any recollection of before the ambush.

None of us sees the uniformed gunman hiding in the bush to the left of the track as we slow to pass through a tight copse of woody brush. We know nothing of his stance as he raises the AKM assault rifle, whether he fires from the hip or whether the butt is ensconced in his shoulder. We never see his expression, and we can only guess vaguely at his thoughts as he pulls the trigger and rakes the weapon in a single burst from tail to nose, at head-height through the windows of our passing Toyota.

I hear an ugly noise like the roar of machinery, and for a split second my reaction is one of annoyance as I’m catapulted from my private thoughts. I hear three very loud, distinct, bangs, as though a body-builder is driving a sledge-hammer against a steel box, with myself on the inside. I think, for just an instant, that Issa has struck an overhanging branch.

And then, I don’t really remember how, I’m on my side, staring at the tape deck and covered with shattered glass.

Held

Long seconds ooze by. The vehicle is stationary, idling. Issa and I don’t move. I hear nothing from behind us. I sense our attacker is still there. I’m waiting for a face to appear at the driver’s side window, for a burst of gunfire to hose us down while we lie there, but there’s nothing.

So I raise my hands.

Gradually, cautiously. I inch my fingertips up above the level of the dash, keeping my head low. If they start shooting again, and I feel they might, I want to be able to get down in a hurry. I feel spectacularly vulnerable, and almost as though I’m slowly immersing my fingers into molten steel. But there’s no more gunfire yet. So with a feeling of considerable disbelief, I raise my head, first brow, then eyes, then finally face visible.

I see a second gunman, one I didn’t know about, standing in front of the vehicle about twenty paces away beside the bush he’d been concealed behind. His rifle is pointing at me through the windshield. I keep my hands up and my movements slothful. I don’t know it yet, but the reason Issa has had to stop the vehicle is that this guy put two rounds into the front tyre, inches from my knee-cap.

Issa’s up now as well. The first gunman, the one who did all the shooting, is at his window. Words are spoken. Issa opens his door and gets out. There’s urgency in his movements. I allow a slight turn of my head to watch what’s happening without making it look like I’m staring. I catch a glimpse of the back seat. I can tell there are people lying down. Nobody’s moving and nobody’s making any sound. There’s blood everywhere, but I can’t tell what’s going on, and now isn’t the time. I keep my hands raised. In a distant place I’m aware of a slight burning sensation along the skin of my left elbow but it’s not a concern right now.

Now Issa’s around to my side of the car. There are words spoken. The gunmen are angsty.

My radio chatters to life. It’s the first car. Emmanuel. They’ve heard the shots and have stopped a couple of hundred yards ahead in the bush, out of sight. They want to know if we’re okay.

One of the gunmen says something.

“Turn it off,” Issa orders. The driver is a former policeman, I later learn. His cool responsiveness and obedient attitude, as well as his ability to translate for me, doubtless save our lives.

I do as I’m told.

“Should I get out?” I ask. Issa nods.

“Get out,” he tells me.

I move slowly, keeping one hand up, using fingers to unlatch the door. I step out onto the tuft of thick grass beside the four-by-four, and there I anchor myself. In the ambush two days ago, the attackers were interrupted by another vehicle on the road and fled. At the time they were in the process of leading our team at gunpoint into the bush, purpose unknown. The memory sticks. I have no intention of discovering for myself.

I’m focused now. There’s no sensation that you could describe as ‘fear’, only a very intense concentration on staying alive. I know that I can’t actually stop these guys killing me if they want to. I already have a pretty good idea that they’re capable of it. I don’t know what’s happened behind me, only that our clearly-marked vehicle has been fired on, and that now there are bodies lying in the back, bloodied and not moving. But if I can avoid doing anything to actually encourage them to shoot me, then I’m going to make it my mission over the next few minutes to make damn sure I do just that. I concentrate on my security training.

I’m wearing sunglasses. I’m conscious that in a situation like this you shouldn’t wear sunnies. It can appear arrogant, and angry men with guns can get the impression you’re staring them down- something you don’t want. The rule of thumb in surviving a hostage situation is to be invisible. Be polite and obedient without being subservient. You want to maintain your personal dignity and present yourself like a human being, because if you start to weep or beg or make yourself ‘less’ you make it easier for a gunman to see you as detached from humanity and easier to put down. Likewise you don’t want to challenge your assailant.

As I stand there, I seek that middle ground like my life depends on it- because it may well. I tilt my head slightly downwards so that they won’t think I’m eyeballing. And I stand straight, shoulders back, maintaining my personal space and making it clear I’m still in control of my posture. My lips are closed and straight. I breathe slowly and deeply through my nostrils.

Behind me, I don’t know this, but the first gunman is going systematically around each of the shot-out windows, reaching in, and robbing the three warm bodies lying back there.

I’m still looking down, taking in the black boots of the second gunman, ten paces from me not moving and his weapon still locked on me. When the first approaches me, I don’t look up. I see his woodland-camouflage uniform, and the muzzle of his AKM assault rifle as it presses into the folds of my utility vest where my solar-plexus is.

Hands go through my pockets. They find a Swiss Army knife. It’s tossed into the long grass and I don’t see it again. Then I’m left alone.

There’s quiet. Things are very tense. There’s a tangible malice in the air. I’ve only felt it a couple of times in my life and it’s a very unpleasant feeling. Being watched, by something that wants to do you harm. In my minds eye I have detached from myself, and I’m looking down as if from above. I see myself, standing by the open door of the Land Cruiser. I see the two gunmen, one at my twelve o’clock, ten paces out, and the other at my ten o’clock, five paces out. Issa is standing close by as well. I can feel the guns on me, both of them, as though little dotted lines are running from their muzzles straight to my torso; it makes my skin tingle. I’m experiencing very little emotion, but considerable discomfort, like something is terribly, terribly wrong.

I have the distinct thought, if they’re going to shoot me I hope they don’t do it in the gut. The same mind’s eye is projecting an image of me, lying curled in a ball beside the wheel of the Land Cruiser, dying slowly and alone. I still have no fear, but the thought is an unpleasant one regardless.

The sense of malice lingers. I’m worried now. They’ve shot us up, and now they’ve robbed us. Why aren’t they leaving? Why are they still here?

I make a decision to do something. If I keep standing here in the open I’m worried they might decide to take me with them, just by default.  I look at Issa.

“Can I get back in the car?”

“Yes, get back in.”

I ease my way back into the front seat under watching eyes. I keep my hands visible, always slow.

Then I hear conversation. It is slightly agitated. I hear the English word ‘Money‘.

“Do you want money?” I ask. “I have money.”

Issa confirms this is what they’re asking for. I reach into my top pocket and find the stuffed banknotes. There’s about one-fifty in USD, another fifty in local currency. I hold these out, and they’re taken from my hand.

Still they linger.

I’m really uncomfortable now. I don’t know what’s going on, but they’re talking among themselves. This is taking a long time. Issa is listening. I keep my hands up and try not to make it seem like I’m staring. I want this to be done now. It’s probably only a few minutes- two or three at the most- since the first shots were fired, but it feels like hours. It doesn’t make sense that they’re still here.

Behind me, a walkie-talkie squawks. It’s the first vehicle again. I find out later it’s Essam’s radio.

Then, with no further word or warning, the two gunmen turn and head into the bush. Issa darts for the driver’s door.

I turn in my seat and see that Essam is sitting upright behind me. He’s been shot in the arm. Kneeling in the well, Mohammed is upright too, but he looks horrible. His shirt is shiny, his entire torso saturated with wet crimson. There’s blood running in star-like limbs from the crown of his head where a bullet has cut his scalp. In his arms, he’s holding Abdul. The big man is hanging limp, facing downwards. I can see the top of his head is open, and there’s blood dribbling from the wound in a steady thread of bright red, like a tap that hasn’t been turned off.

“Is he alive?” I ask. Mohammed nods. His face is grim. Then Issa is gunning the engine, and the car is sliding in the soft sand, and we lurch away from the ambush-site and onward into the bush.

Part II: Flight, tomorrow

Images:

1. Unsourced, taken from World Prout Assembly: ‘In Darfur, Terror from the Air’ (link embedded in photo)

2. Lynsey Addario for the New York Times, from blog jdasovic.com: ‘Janjawid Militia Renews Scorched-Earth Policy in Darfur’ (link embedded in photo)

Victoria Burning

Many of you will have heard about the ferocious fires that have been devastating the state of Victoria over the last thirty-six hours.  They come on the heels of a record-breaking heatwave, in the midst of a decade of drought that has seen the landscape here become drier, and drier, and drier.  The media and the emergency services have been preparing people for several days for the extreme fire hazard that came to a climax yesterday.  Yesterday saw temperatures in central Melbourne hit 46.4 degrees centigrade (115F), and just outside Melbourne, 48 (118F), with powerful gale-force winds, gusting up to 120kph (75mph).  As one who loves extreme weather, this was the hottest I have experienced outside of Saharan Africa.

I didn’t go out photographing the fires yesterday.  Frankly, I’m not that stupid- although I confess that the photojournalist in me was sorely tempted, particularly when driving home in the afternoon the highway I was driving down was engulfed in a plume of smoke from a fresh grassfire just erupting at the roadside.  But the last thing the emergency service folk need is bystanders gawking, getting in the way, and possibly putting themselves at risk.  Even bystanders with lots of expensive camera gear.

The weather was scary.  The heat made your eyeballs shrivel back in your head.  You could see great clouds of dust and smoke blowing overhead.  The wind was animal in nature, gusting wildlybackwards and forwards, bending the crowns of the eucalyptus trees and swirling debris down streets.  Around two in the afternoon, when the day was at its most intense, I found myself on a sidewalk in a normally-bustling suburban commercial centre.  The heat battered down from above and radiated back up from the street, making me wither.  The wind was tearing at my clothes and burning my eyes.  It was the sort of weather you don’t seem to sweat in- any perspiration is evaporated straight off the body before it can wet your skin.  If you’re out long enough, you’ll find little salt deposits left behind on your clothing.

About two weeks ago I was out for a drive with my camera about ten minutes from my parent’s place in south-eastern Melbourne.  I had noticed a plume of smoke and had swung past to investigate it.  It was another fiercely hot day- we’ve had a few this summer- and I found myself in a queue of stalled traffic.  Up ahead, police were directing traffic.  Through the windshield I could see the smoke rising.  Flames were shooting up into the sky.  I snapped off a couple of shots through the windshield.

I parked my car some distance away and walked over.  There were crowds of people standing around watching the smoke plume above a residential neighbourhood.  I kept my distance and watched for a few minutes, conflicted over the desire to get a closer look and the desire not to get in the way- or worse, put myself at risk.  There was a thick stand of trees running down the edge of this neighbourhood, and a wide access track along which people were still moving fairly freely.  There was no sign of emergency workers, so I eventually decided I’d get a little closer.  Five or six choppers were circling overhead by this time, and a Huey was doing water-bombing runs.  I edged forward, but was very mindful of the bush to the side of me, and the fact that fire runs a lot quicker than I do.

I didn’t get too far.  Quite frankly, aside from being very concious of not disrupting any emergency work, the bushland made me nervous.  Although I could locate the fire ahead of me by the plume of smoke, that didn’t mean it couldn’t change direction and leap through the scrubland very quickly, and I couldn’t see the front itself, except when the flames leapt especially high.  The wind was gusting and the air was hot, and it was an unnerving feeling.

I stopped about halfway down this track.  Ahead of me, the track rose to a crest, and the fire was on the other side of that.  There was a group of people standing on the crest looking down onto the fire, and emergency workers in yellow vests with them.  I figured as long as the emergency workers weren’t telling people to run, I was okay.  I was a good two or three hundred yards back from that group, and as close as I wanted to get.  In all honesty, I couldn’t believe that they were standing there- or that the emergency workers hadn’t told them to move back.

A teenage girl with a push-bike was coming down the track towards me from the crest.  When she saw me with my camera taking shots of the swooping chopper she assumed I was with the press and we got chatting.  She had been just below the ridge, not far from the fire front, and was evidently scared.  She told me she’d been trying to tell her friend to come back down away from the fire, but her friend hadn’t listened, enjoying the excitement presumably.  Something of the girl’s fear was rubbing off on me.  Her voice was trembling a little.  The flames were so powerful, and even at the distance at which I stood I could sense that they were something wild which none of us could predict or control.  The girl with her bike was doubtless the smartest person out there that afternoon, and after another minute or two both of us turned and headed back to the main road.  I was thoroughly humbled by the experience.  It was as close to a bushfire as I’d ever gotten, and certainly as close as I’d ever hope to be in the future.  Halfway back to the road, and we saw that the yellow vests were getting people to evacuate.

In the event, this fire burned through a few hectares of bushland and damaged one house.  Nobody was hurt.  As I write this passage, it’s midnight on the 8th of February.  Since midday yesterday, bushfires around Melbourne and parts of country Victoria have claimed 84 lives, with more bodies expected to be found as emergency workers comb through wreckage.  More than 650 homes have so far been lost, and at least a dozen big fires are still burning out of control.  The picturesque town of Marysville, a place I have visited on a number of occasions (as have many Melbournians) and always enjoyed, has been razed to the ground.  Several other towns have equally been devastated, some with extensive loss of life.  The fires are not out, and already they are being billed as the worst in this country’s history.

Getting close to the relatively small fire-front that burned outside of Seaford two weeks ago gave me just enough of a sense of the fire’s ferocity to be awed by what we’re seeing out in the bush this weekend.  I take my hat off to the emergency workers who are fighting the blazes, and my heart goes out to those who have lost homes, friends and loved ones.  My house and my family are safe, but there are many people even this evening whose future hangs in the balance.

Photos:

1-3: A CFA Huey on a bombing run.

4: View of the fire plume from Oliver’s Hill, Frankston.  I took this shot and didn’t realise until later that the fire plume was in it.  Oliver’s Hill is one of my favourite viewpoints in all of Melbourne- it invariably gives fantastic views of the bay.  The plume is visible starting behind and just to the right of the tall building on the right hand side of the shot.

5: Flames visible above the suburbs, just outside Seaford.

6-7: Smoke above bushland and houses.

8: Onlookers gather just beyond the fire-front.

9: The chopper’s water-bombing run shows just how close they’re standing to the flames.

10: Farmland a couple of minutes outside of Marysville, taken in 2004.

Note: All photos taken with Canon EOS 5D and Canon EF 24-105 f/2.8 L, except final photograph, taken with a Canon T-70 on 35mm slide film.