The Archive: Week 2 - Touloum, Chad
Sudanese refugee camp, Touloum, Chad
While on assignment in Chad I spent a lot of time in the Sudanese refugee camps that dot the volatile boarder region. It’s pretty tough to get out to this region, even for tough-to-get-to region standards. It’s not just a matter of transportation or costs, it’s a matter of permission and access. Anyone can get to N’djamena (the Capital), but to getting to East Chad requires getting on the U.N. mandate that allows you access into the U.N. level 4 security zone and on to WFP flights.
Once you are in the East, then it’s a matter of transportation. A series of small flights over the desert, brings you to these make- shift towns where all the major international NGO’s have their sub-offices.
Because of security issues, you have to travel in an armed convoy to get to the camps. The photo that stuck out to me this week is a photo of NGO workers from various agencies facing towards Mecca to pray before heading back in the convoy.
Why it stuck out - It photo doesn’t really have much of a publishable context, but for me it’s one of those photos that brings me back to the moment. I remember wrapping up shooting for the day around 3 o’clock and had about 3 hours to kill before the vehicles arrived for the convoy. I spent most of those hours laying under an acacia tree trying to stay out of the horrible heat and catch up on some much needed sleep.
There wasn’t a car in sight all day, then all of a sudden at 5:00 they all showed up coming from various directions of the desert. We all greeted and then everyone proceeded to pray. After, we drove back to our camp under protection from a splinter SLA rebel group.
