Chad Assignment Photos
A few photos from my assignment to Chad in September.
If there is a single nation in Africa that has gone most abruptly from the most brilliant of prospects for the next quarter century to the darkest in the shortest period of time, it is Chad. Despite the start of oil production in 2003, an investment of $3.7 billion by a consortium of foreign oil companies headed by Exxon/Mobil and the construction of an oil pipeline bankrolled, in large part, by the World Bank, Chad remains the world’s fifth poorest country. Some 80 percent of the population is below the global poverty line, while the nation’s per capita income is less than $1,500 a year.
But perhaps most disturbing in a nations that could be an anchor of West Africa over the next quarter century is the rampant corruption that has stymied every effort at development. Tied with Guinea and Sudan as the world’s sixth most corrupt nation by Transparency International, the World Bank actually froze its funding of the oil pipeline project when the government reneged on its pledges to devote 80 percent of the revenue to development projects. Instead, vast amounts of funds have been poured into the arm trade that fuels the on-again, off-again civil war which periodically sweeps the country.
Malaria is still thought to kill a million people each year, though in Chad the death rate may be far higher than most since so many deaths go unrecorded in rural areas. Moreover, this figure is rising, not falling. Maternal mortality rates are the world’s third highest in Chad, more than 80 percent of the women face female circumcision. And each year, as the rainy season ends, rebels are on the move from the east, where tens of thousands of refugees from the even more beleaguered Darfur region of Sudan and the Central African Republic languish in overcrowded refugee camps.
N’DJAMENA, CHAD – Islamic school leaders in the capital city of Chad give a special Ramadan Sunday morning lesson encouraging followers of the faith to not practice extremism – that “Islam preaches peace”.
N’DJAMENA,CHAD– Uncertain of her future, Tomo Ali looks at her newborn baby. Ali, HIV positive was only tested when she came in to deliver. Due to a national AIDS program in Chad that provides 100% of ARV’s (Anti-retroviral), Ali did not transmit HIV to her baby because of PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission. However, with her husband dead of HIV she looks at her baby with an uncertain future.
DOBA, CHAD - Maternal mortality rates in Chad are among the top 3 worst in the world and getting worse. Rural clinics are almost non-existent and pre-natal care is nearly impossible for woman in the South of Chad.
N’DJAMENA, CHAD – While pregnant mothers wait in line for pre-natal counseling, they watch a video on forced marriage and female circumcision – a major problem in Chad where more than 80% of woman face female circumcision.
BONGOR, CHAD- Youth-run HIV/AIDS center provides voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) to a population with a relatively unknown HIV prevalence rate. Sigma runs high and early WHO estimates are indicating raising rates in the South of Chad. Run by UNFPA
N’DJAMENA,CHAD– Coming from the remote desert village, Liliene Naima was not able to take advantage of the state-run HIV program – highlighting the need for home based care and training of lay midwives in the village. Liliene is just one of over 30 woman dying of HIV/AIDS in this clinic, some seem just minutes away from succumbing to the virus.
Koukou, Chad- Displaced Chadians also face shortages of food, water, shelter and adequate sanitation. Their situation gets worse during the annual “hunger gap” before the September harvest. They have been attacked when trying to return home to plant crops or collect food. Here, internally displaced children from the Koukou IDP site (25,000 people) play in the waning days of the rainy season.
N’DJAMENA,CHAD – As a result of obstetric fistula young girls are so ostracized from their families and communities they cannot go back even after their much needed surgery. The only way they can go back is if they prove they have a skill or simply earn their way back.
Here girls take part in a UNFPA skills for life center where they learn basic sewing skills with hopes to earn enough money to travel back to their home village or to prove they will not be an economic ‘burden’. Run by UNFPA
Toloum, Chad- A group of Sudanese refugee woman in the Touloum camp in Chad, listen to a weekly ‘woman’s empowerment class’. This weeks topic is the on the rights of a child. These soon to be moms and existing moms, hear for the first time that their children posses certain unalienable rights recognized by the international community. Child soldier recruitment remains a huge problem in east Chad both for rebel groups and Chadian National Army. With few opportunities for income, some of the kids even volunteer for to be part of certain rebel resistance groups to earn money for their families. Run by UNFPA
I’ve never experienced the amout of paperwork and press passes, visas and stamps in an African country before; Chad was something else. The first thing one must do when arriving in Chad is to go straight to the police headcourters the next day and get an exit stamp. If you don’t have this stamp in your passport within 3 days of arrival in the country you cannot leave. To prove this point, when I eventually left N’Djamena and was walking on the tarmack to get on my flight to Paris, they had the Chadian police department standing right in front of the stairs to get on the plane checking for this stamp. A European expat behind me was not allowed to get on the plane because of this. It was a pretty bad scene. So next time your in Chad, make sure you stop by every police station in every city you fly into; for good measure, just ask them to stamp your travel visa.
Here is the BBC link to the story…
